A public interest litigation has been filed in the Madras high court seeking a direction to the state government to prohibit the manufacture, storage, distribution or sale of tobacco and nicotine products, including pan masala and gutkha, that are used for human consumption in the state.
When the PIL filed by advocate P.T. Geotom “in the interest of public health” came up for hearing before Chief Justice M.Y. Eqbal and Justice T.S. Sivagnanam on Monday, advocate general A. Navaneethakrishnan sought time to file a counter and was granted six weeks to do so.
The petitioner said that in India there were almost 275 million tobacco users and each year about one million people die as a result of the use of tobacco products and according to the data available with the World Health Organization, if this present trend continues, tobacco will account for 13 per cent of all deaths in India by 2020.
A survey by the Adyar Cancer Institute stated that 40 per cent of Chennai children were affected by passive smoking.
States such as Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerala and Rajasthan have already banned all consumable products containing tobacco and nicotine as an ingredient and many other states, including Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, are also intending to ban such products, Geotom said.
The petitioner contended that a welfare state had to protect the health of its citizens. Keeping in mind that public interest and health is a priority, a duty was enshrined under Articles 21, 39 (e) and 47 of the Constitution on the governments at the state and the Centre to implement the Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 and various other related enactments, he said.