Arundhati Roy e book: Kerala HC dismisses PIL looking for keep on sale over cowl picture displaying her smoking

The Kerala High Court on Monday (October 13, 2025) dismissed a public curiosity litigation (PIL) filed earlier than the court docket by a lawyer on September 18, looking for a keep on the sale of Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy’s not too long ago launched e bookMother Mary Comes To Me, whose cowl picture exhibits her smoking a beedi.

The lawyer-petitioner had contended that the e book didn’t have any statutory health-hazard warning label concerning smoking and that this was a violation of Section 5 of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2013. Later, it emerged that there was a written disclaimer concerning the ill-effects of smoking, behind the e book.

While listening to the petition on Monday, a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Nitin Jamdar and Justice Basant Balaji mentioned it was as much as the steering committee constituted beneath the Act to determine whether or not the matter was an infringement of Section 5 of the Act, after listening to the events. In this case, the petitioner, regardless of being made conscious of, has refused to take up the difficulty earlier than the committee.

He filed the petition with out analyzing the authorized provision and with out verifying whether or not there was a disclaimer talked about behind the e book. In the sunshine of the circumstances, the petition has been dismissed, maintaining in thoughts the warning that the court docket should guarantee PILs aren’t used a automobile for self-publicity or for partaking in private slander.

The petitioner’s counsel had contended final Tuesday that the disclaimer talked about behind the e book was inadequate and that it must have been revealed in a conspicuous method. He mentioned the picture sans a disclaimer on the entrance web page had the potential to ship a deceptive message to impressionable youth, particularly women and girls.

The Centre’s counsel had submitted then that other than the steering committee, such complaints might be registered by way of a web based portal arrange beneath the nationwide tobacco management programme. These choices must have been tried out, reasonably than immediately method the High Court within the guise of a PIL.