The Delhi High Court on Monday dismissed a plea filed by the makers of Vimal Elaichi seeking to quash show-cause notices issued to its brand ambassadors.
The Delhi High Court on Monday dismissed a plea filed by the makers of Vimal Elaichi seeking to quash show-cause notices issued to its brand ambassadors – Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn and Tiger Shroff – by the Maharashtra FDA for alleged misrepresentation of the product in advertisements.
Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma held the petition to be non-maintainable for want of territorial jurisdiction and said that courts in Maharashtra are the more appropriate and convenient forum for the petitioner to raise grievances concerning the impugned notice, as per the doctrine of forum conveniens.
“The petition is therefore dismissed on this ground, without expressing any opinion on the merits of the petitioner’s challenge. Pending application, if any, also stands disposed of,” the court said in its order.
In its petition, petitioner PB Agro LLP said it engages the services of reputed actors for the promotion of the cardamom product under the brand ‘Vimal’ and its endorsement agreements with them, and the company assures that the advertisement campaign is in full compliance of the applicable laws.
It said regulatory notices were issued by the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) alleging that advertisements for Vimal Elaichi amount to surrogate promotion of Vimal Pan Masala, a chewable product banned within Maharashtra.
The plea said the Maharashtra FDA had directed the actors featured in Vimal Elaichi advertisements to provide documentation demonstrating that Vimal Elaichi is a product different from the banned pan masala products. It also called for a halt on the promotional campaign and for the withdrawal of related materials from digital platforms.
The counsel representing the petitioner had argued that the August 11 FDA notice was sent only to the actors and not to the company itself, despite the fact that the company alone is going to suffer irreparably due to any action taken by the state regulator.
The petitioner was not even provided with an opportunity to be heard, the counsel had said .
The high court, in its order, said it was of the view that the petitioner has failed to establish that any substantial or material part of the cause of action has arisen within the territorial jurisdiction of this court.
“The impugned show-cause notice was issued by the FDA, Mumbai, state of Maharashtra – to the brand ambassadors engaged by the petitioner, who are residents of Mumbai – in relation to alleged activities and alleged statutory violations in Maharashtra.
“Though the petitioner has impleaded the ministry and the FSSAI, which are situated in Delhi, as parties in the writ petition, neither any specific relief is claimed against either of them, nor any direction or order passed by these authorities has been challenged before the court or even placed on record with the writ petition,” it said.
The court said the factum of petitioner operating its business from Delhi or engaging brand ambassadors from Delhi, especially when the impugned notice has not been issued to the petitioner herein, cannot by themselves confer territorial jurisdiction upon this court, in light of the judicial precedents of the Supreme Court as well as this court.
Justice Sharma said the court cannot permit jurisdiction to be created by selectively referring to facts such as the petitioner’s registered office, the place from which payments were made, or the location where the advertising campaign may have been conceived or managed, when those facts have no direct bearing on the validity of the impugned notice.
The court must also guard against a situation where pleadings are moulded in a manner so as to project incidental facts as constituting the cause of action, while the material facts relating to the actual dispute lie elsewhere, the high court said.
It added that facts which have no bearing on the lis (suit), or which are merely background facts, do not confer territorial jurisdiction merely because they are pleaded in the petition.
The company had claimed that the Maharashtra FDA lacked jurisdiction to issue directions to halt the advertisements.
In its petition, the company also claimed that allegations of surrogate advertisement were baseless since Vimal Pan Masala has not been manufactured or sold in Maharashtra since 2001, and pan masala containing tobacco has been barred by the Supreme Court nationwide since 2013.
The counsel representing the Centre and the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) had contended that the petition should have been filed before the Bombay High Court since the show-cause notice had been passed by the Maharashtra government.
Published on September 14, 2026
