TN govt citing Article 47 of Constitution to justify ban on tobacco sale is like devil quoting Scripture: Madras HC

MADURAI: The Madras high court has said the contention of the Tamil Nadu government citing Article 47 of the Constitution that consumption of tobacco is causing serious health hazard and is injurious to public health is like devil quoting the Scripture or pot calling the kettle black.


Justice G R Swaminathan observed that Article 47 of Constitution spoke about the duty of the state to raise the level of nutrition and the standard of living and to improve public health.

Referring to Article 21 of the Constitution, the state government had argued that consumption of tobacco was injurious to public health. The judge said the contention of the state would have impressed the court if the government had enforced Article 47 in its totality.

"Unfortunately, that is not the case. The state has monopolised the privilege of selling liquor. The government of Tamil Nadu is raising a huge revenue through liquor sale. Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC), a wholly government owned company, has thousands of retail outlets throughout the state. The argument of the state anchored on Article 47 is like a devil quoting the Scripture or pot calling the kettle black," observed the judge.

The court made the observations while hearing a batch of petitions filed by companies dealing with unmanufactured tobacco. The nature of trade involves purchase of tobacco leaves from farmers, spraying of jaggery water on them, cutting them into small pieces and packing.

The stand of the food safety and drug administration department is that the raw tobacco leaves have been subjected to manufacturing process for human consumption. It passed the orders prohibiting their sale. This has led to the filing of the petitions.

The state submitted that there was an element of manufacture as it involved removing dust and sand and spraying the tobacco leaves with jaggery water and cutting them into small pieces. The Regulation 2.3.4 of the Food Safety and Standards (Prohibition and Restrictions on Sales) Regulations, 2011, categorically mandated that nicotine shall not be used as an ingredient in any food product, it said. In this case, the test reports had indicated that nicotine was very much present in the sample and that was why the officials proceeded to issue the orders, it said.

Justice Swaminathan observed that jaggery water was sprayed only to ensure that the leaf does not turn brittle. “Nicotine is inherent in the product itself. It is not as if the petitioners have added nicotine as an ingredient in the food product,” the judge said.

The court said the state had not prohibited the cultivation of tobacco as it had done in the case of ganja. There is even a Central Tobacco Research Institute located in Vedasandur in Dindigul which trains the tobacco farmers.

Observing that the petitioners were dealing only with unmanufactured tobacco and they had not breached any of the statutory provisions, the judge quashed the orders passed by the authorities.