A writ plea has been made in the Madras High Court to ban, in the interest of public health, the manufacture, storage, distribution and sale of tobacco and nicotine consumable products including pan
masala and kutkha and all other reflated products.
When the public interest writ petition from advocate PT Geotom came up before the first bench comprising Chief Justice MY Eqbal and Justice TS Sivagnanam on Monday, Advocate-General A Navaneethakrishnan took
notice. The bench granted six weeks time to the AG to file his counter affidavit.
Petitioner submitted that there were about 275 million tobacco users in India and each year about one million people died due to the use of tobacco products and according to the data available with World Health
Organisation, if this trend continued, tobacco would account for 13 per cent of all deaths in India by 2020. A survey conducted by the Adyar Cancer Institute stated that 40 per cent of Chennai kids were affected by psssive smoking. A welfare State had to protect the health of its citizens. Keeping in mind the health of the people, a duty was enshrined under Articles 21, 39(e) and 47 of the Constitution on the governments at the State and the Centre to fully implement the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
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