The Delhi High Court Thursday sent a notice to yoga guru Ramdev after Delhi Medical Association (DMA) filed a lawsuit over his controversial statements on allopathic medicines. The Court refused to pass any order restraining the Yoga Guru from making remarks against allopathic medicine but orally asked Ramdev’s counsel to tell him not to make any provocative statements.
“Mr Rajiv Nayar is a very respectable senior (advocate). I am sure his client will listen to him,” Justice C Hari Shankar said.
The doctor’s body had sought to restrain Baba Ramdev from spreading false information about Patanjali’s Coronil tablet, claimed to be a treatment for Covid-19 and demanded an unconditional apology from the Patanjali founder.
Amid a heated exchange of arguments , the Court said “You people (doctors) should be spending time to find cure for the pandemic instead of wasting the court’s time”. To this the DMA’s counsel Rajiv Dutta registered a storng objection saying “Ramdev’s remarks are affecting members of the DMA. He is calling doctors names. He is saying this science (allopathy) is fake. Ramdev is falsely representing Coronil as a cure for Covid with zero per cent death rate.
The court said it cannot say as to whether Coronil is a cure or not and that it was something to be decided by medical experts. The judge said he was “least concerned” with the association’s argument that Ramdev was a powerful person having large number of followers.
“Ramdev is a person who doesn”t have faith is allopathy. He believes everything can be cured by Yoga and Ayurveda. He may be right or wrong,” he said.
He added that the court can understand it is argued his statements are affecting the public but here “you say oh my God Ramdev has done something. You people should be spending time to find cure for the pandemic instead of wasting the court’s time”.
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To this, the judge said, “If I feel some science is fake. Tomorrow I will feel homeopathy is fake. Do you mean they will file a suit against me? I put in on twitter. You will say take down the Twitter account. It is a public opinion. I do not think your allopathic profession is so fragile”, and added that it has to be tested on the touchstone of free speech.
The court said someone has a view that it is because of inefficacy of allopathic medicines that so many people have died and it was of the view that it comes under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.
(with agency inputs)
