The Supreme Court today refused to grant any interim stay on the Karnataka High Court verdict which quashed the government regulation that packets of tobacco products must carry pictorial warning covering 85 per cent of the packaging space. A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul asked the high court to upload the judgement on its website and fixed the appeal against it for further hearing on January 8 next year.
Several petitions, including the one filed by NGO Health for Millions Trust, have challenged the high court verdict. The high court had on December 15 struck down the 2014 amendment rules that mandated the pictorial health warning to cover 85 per cent of the tobacco product packaging space, holding that they violated constitutional norms. A special division bench comprising Justice B.S. Patil and Justice B.V. Nagarathna delivered the verdict on a batch of petitions, filed by the Tobacco Institute of India, cigarette manufacturers like ITC Ltd., beedi and other tobacco products manufacturers before the High Courts of Karnataka, Calcutta, Delhi, Bombay, Gujarat, and Rajasthan, challenging the 2014 rules. All these petitions were transferred to the Karnataka High Court by the apex court.
(With additional inputs from The Hindu)