AARTI Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB THROUGH PRINCIPAL SECRETARY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954 was enacted by the Parliament in view of an increasing number of objectionable advertisements being published in newspapers, magazines or otherwise relating to alleged cure for venereal diseases, sexual stimulants and alleged cure for diseases and conditions peculiar to women. The Statement of Objects and Reasons of the said legislation justified the need for enacting a law on the subject because of the tendency among the ignorant and the unwary sections of society to resort to self-medication with harmful drugs or appliances or resort to quacks who indulge in treatments which cause great harm. By enacting the law, the Parliament intended to stop such undesirable advertisements in public interest and to deal with the menace by making a uniform law for the entire country. The legislation is apparently referable to Entry No. 19 in the Concurrent List of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution in so far as the same deals with undesirable advertisements relating to drugs and Entry No. 26 of List ___ in so far as the same deals with advertisements relating to magic remedies by persons who practice the profession of administering such remedies. Section 3 of the Act inter alia provides that no person shall take any part in the publication of any advertisement referring to any drug calculated to lead to the use of that drug for the purposes enumerated in the said section. Section 4 of the Act forbids taking part in publication of any advertisement relating to any drug if the advertisement contains any matter which directly or indirectly gives a false impression regarding the true character of the drug or makes a false claim for the drug or is otherwise false or misleading in any material particular. Section 5 of the Act prohibits any person carrying on or purporting to carry on the profession of administering magic remedies from taking any part in publication of any advertisement referring to any magic remedy which directly or indirectly claims to be efficacious for any of the purposes specified in Section 3. Section 7 provides for penalties for the contravention of the provisions of the Act or the Rules made thereunder, while Section 8 empowers a Gazetted Officer authorised by the State Government to enter and search and to seize any advertisement which he has reason to believe to contravene any of the provisions of the Act. Section 9(A) makes the offences punishable under the provisions of the Act cognizable. Section 10A provides for the forfeiture in favour of the government of any document, article or thing in respect of which the contravention is made.

(2.) THE present writ petition filed in public interest seeks a Mandamus directing respondents No. 1 to 7 to take action against different Tantriks who are publishing misleading advertisements in different newspapers and are advertising their expertise in black magic by befooling the people. It also prays for a direction against respondents No. 8 to 10 not to publish any advertisement of any magic cure, practice of Tantriks claiming to solve problems of the people by magic or Mantra. The petitioner's case as set out, in the petition is that various Tantriks operating in the States of Punjab, Haryana and Union Territory Chandigarh are making fortunes by swindling the innocent and the gullible who are made to believe that the magic cure provided by them is a panacea for all human problems including long and chronic illnesses and various other problems which people face in their lives, like unemployment, failure to pass examinations, failure to travel abroad etc. The petition refers to a large number of advertisements published in different newspapers by these Tantriks, a reading whereof gives an impression as though the person offering the cure does so by some sort of magic. The publication of these advertisements lead the innocent and unwary members of the public to these Tantriks, Babas and Jyotshis who then get cheated of their money by creating a false impression among them that whatever be the nature of the problem, the same will cured by the Tantrik or the magic healer. The petitioner has in particular referred to the case of one Rakesh Kumar, a 20 year young man of Ahilisadar who died because of electrocution on Saturday, 31st of March, 2007 when he was trying to check an electric fault in his water pump. When the news of the death of the young man reached the parents-in-law of the young man, they came to Ahelisadar with a Tantrik from Village Kalanwali who claimed that he could revive Rakesh as he had done the job earlier also. On the direction of the Tantrik, the family members buried the body of the deceased under a heap of cow dung in a manner that his torso remained under the garbage and head out of it. The Tantrik continued chanting Mantras throughout the night, while hundreds of villagers from the surrounding/nearby villages started gathering outside to witness the miracle of a dead man coming alive because of the magic remedy of the Tantrik, the incident was reported in the daily Tribune in its issue dated 2nd April, 2007 in the following words :-

(3.) THE petition then refers to advertisements which claim to solve all problems whether relating to service, business, love marriage, vashikaran or childlessness. A compilation of some of these advertisement have been produced and marked as Annexure P3 which makes the reading both interesting and shocking and shows the extent to which the people can go in befooling the gullible public by giving out such advertisements. Some of these advertisements are as under :-