FIR filed against Patanjali products for wrong claims in Marie Biscuit

Yoga Guru Baba Ram Dev and his close aide CEO of Patanjali Acharya Balkrishna have approached Rajasthan High Court to quash an FIR lodged against them in a case where one Advocate Sunil Singh of Ajmer has alleged that Baba Ramdev has wrongly claimed in advertisements that Patanjali’s product Marie Biscuit is completely free from Maida and contain 100% atta. Singh has produced a lab report before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) Jaipur in support of his claim after which police had filed an FIR at on the directions of CMM under Section 420 and 120B of IPC  on January 11, this year.

Baba Ram Dev and Acharya Bal Kishan through his counsel Advocate Ajit Bhandari have filed a petition before High Court Judge Justice Deepak Maheshwari claiming that the complaint is baseless and FIR may be quashed. Justice Maheshwari has sought replies from both the complainant and the state government as to why the FIR shouldn’t be quashed. The court will next hear the case on March 20, 2018.

The Patanjali, on the other hand had rejected all the allegations. Baba Ram Dev’s counsel Advocate Ajit Bhandari has challenged the FIR saying that the accusations are baseless. For the manufacturing of biscuits, apart from atta, other ingredients are also used. But in the complaint, it is not quoted how much is the quantity of Maida was found in the biscuit sample. He also argued that if at all any irregularity is there its is not of a criminal nature.  “The matter is related to food safety and should be reported under Food Safety Regulations. There is no basis of lodging FIR,” he said.