Published On:Sunday, May 11, 2014
Posted by Unknown
Top Bollywood Actors Issued Court Notice for Promoting Liquor Brands
The Gwalior Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High court has issued notices to Bollywod actors Shahrukh Khan, Ajay Devgan, Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty and Manoj Bajpai, for violating the State Excise Act, and promoting liquor brand in the state.
They have been given a months time to file their reply on a petition that accused them of promoting different brands of liquor under the pretext of selling soda.
The single judge bench of Justice D K Paliwal, while hearing a miscellaneous criminal application, in the notice, asked the Bollywood stars, why a FIR should not be lodged against them under the Excise Act. The court also issued similar notices to the manufactures of popular liquor brands like Haywards and Bagpiper.
The petitioner, Ashok Singh Bhadoria, a resident of Kunj vihar colony, Gwalior, in the petition, stated that promotion of liquor is prohibited under section 23-A of the State Excise Act.
“The Bollywood stars have been made a party because they are promoting liquor despite knowing it’s illegal. Even under the Cable TV Rule 1994 Rule 7, the promotion of liquor is not allowed in televisions. Despite these laws, the liquor manufacturing companies are openly advertising liquor products by advertising soda products, whose name is similar to their liquor brand,” said Bhadoria.
According to him, he was forced to file a miscellaneous criminal application after the district police failed to submit its report on a similar Public interest litigation which was filed 6 months ago. In it, the Gwalior High Court had asked the police to submit its finding on whether companies were advertising their liquor brands under the garb of selling soda.
“After that order, the Inderganj police station lodged a complaint, and its inquiry had found that the liquor manufacturing companies were using hoardings to promote their liquor brand by advertising similar sounding soda brands. Despite that, the police did not take any action, due to which, I filed the criminal case,” Bhadoria added.
