Shock for Baba Ramdev: Patanjali brand fined Rs 11 lakh
Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev recently made news headlines after shaking his legs with Bollywood’s sensation Ranveer Singh. Once again Baba Ramdev has become talk of the town as Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali brand fined Rs 11 lakh for misleading ads. A fine of Rs. 11 lakh has been imposed on yoga guru Baba Ramdev for his misleading ads. Baba Ramdev promoted Patanjali Ayurveda’s five production units will have to cough up a fine worth Rs 11 lakh for “misbranding and putting up misleading advertisements” of their products, a court in Uttarakhand’s Haridwar has ruled.
His products failed to pass the quality test
Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali brand has become quite famous among people. But it came as a shock for many of its users when they came to know that their product failed to pass quality test.
A case had been filed in the court against the company in 2012 by the District Food Safety Department after samples of mustard oil, salt, pineapple jam, besan and honey produced by Patanjali Ayurveda had failed quality tests at Rudrapur laboratory.
The products were found to be in violation of sections 52-53 of Food Security norms and section 23.1 (5) of Food safety and Standard (packaging and labelling) regulation. Earlier, this year in July, advertising watchdog Advertising Standards Council of India or ASCI had once again pulled up Patanjali for running “misleading” ad campaigns which disparage competitors’ products.
The Consumer Complaints Council or CCC had found that Patanjali’s claim for its ‘Kachi Ghani Mustard Oil’ that rival makers are selling mustard oil “adulterated with oil made by solvent extraction process with neurotoxin containing Hexane”, was not substantiated.
Patanjali failed to meet the quality standards
Not only this, even many more products failed to meet quality standards. Patanjali had also failed to substantiate its claims for Patanjali Fruit Juice, where it had claimed rival brands as “expensive juices containing less pulp”. In May this year, ASCI had rapped Patanjali Ayurveda for “false and misleading” claims in its various advertisements, including its hair oil and washing powder brands, while issuing list for month of March.
