JOIN USThe High Court on Tuesday ordered issuance of notice to Food Safety and Standards Authority of India in a petition filed by the Cancer Patients Aid Association seeking ban on the manufacture, storage, sale and distribution of all forms of chewing tobacco, including flavoured, scented etc.
Cancer patients with bandages, pipes and wheelchairs were present before the court. The petitioners contended that the state and Union governments had failed to enforce the sale and distribution of chewing tobacco. Though Karnataka has banned gutkha, plain chewing tobacco is still sold in separate pouches. A division bench comprising Chief Justice S K Mukherjee and Justice Ravi Malimath ordered notice and adjourned the hearing.
In another batch of petitions seeking implementation of 85% of pictorial warnings on tobacco products, the division bench said that a separate division bench will be constituted to hear the petitions.
Info on protesters
The High Court has said that whenever there are 'police excesses', the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) should take up the issue and register a complaint instead of waiting for a third person to lodge the complaint. Justice A N Venugopala Gowda said that he was very unhappy in the way PCA and the Karnataka State Human Rights Commission had reacted and dealt with the people of Yamanur, Navalgund district in Dharwad, who were beaten up by the police during the Mahadayi agitation.
The state government, in the report on the medical treatment given to the villagers, said, nearly 1,160 persons, including two pregnant women and three persons with bone injuries were treated. The judge said that the report did not mention names of the persons and the kind of treatment that was given to them. The judge sought a detailed report on the medical treatment given to the villagers and adjourned the next hearing to August 20.