The Supreme Court (SC) today asked yoga guru Baba Ramdev to personally appear in the court following his failure to file a reply to a show-cause notice issued against him in a misleading advertisement case.
Hearing the case, a bench of justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah passed an order for the personal appearance of Ramdev in the case, saying he and his associate Acharya Balkrishna, who's Patanjali chairman, were prima facie in violation of the Sections 3 and 4 of the Drugs and magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954.
The Supreme Court on February 27, 2024, had asked Patanjali Ayurved Ltd to stop promoting and marketing ayurvedic products, which it claimed to cure critical illnesses like heart issues and asthma. The SC ruling had come following a petition by the Indian Medical Association (IMA), which accused the company of claiming to completely cure sugar and asthma, among other illnesses via yoga.
The SC bench had said the company was taking the “country for a ride” by making misleading claims without “empirical evidence”. The SC had also pulled up the government for not keeping a check on such ads. It said Patanjali can't advertise any product that claims to cure ailments specified in the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act.
The Patanjali Foods stock, meanwhile, closed 4.45% down at ₹1,353.60 on the BSE today after falling to an intra-day low of ₹1,342.
The stock is currently trading 22.2% down compared to a 52-week high of ₹1,741 touched on February 16, 2024. The company's share price has dropped 17.74% in the past month and is down 13.54% in the year-to-date period. At the current share price, the company’s m-cap has also fallen to ₹48,999.62 crore.
Patanjali Food's quarterly profit after tax in Q3 FY24 (October-December) was ₹216.54 crore vs ₹254.54 crore in the year-ago period, while the profit margin fell to 2.74% from 3.24% YoY. In Q3 FY24, the company's revenue from operations stood at ₹7,910.70 crore, registering a marginal increase over the previous quarter. For 9MFY24, the company’s profit was ₹ 558.83 crore, with a 2.38% PAT margin. In 9M FY24, its revenue was ₹23,499.69 crore, of which food and FMCG sales were ₹6,938.71 crore.
The board of directors of Patanjali Foods, at its meeting on March 13, 2024, also declared an interim dividend of ₹6 per equity share on 36,19,18,554 of ₹2 each for the financial year 2023-24. The payment will be made on or before April 11, 2024.
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