Kerala HC dismisses PIL against Arundhati Roy's book cover showing her smoking

Kochi: The Kerala High Court on Monday dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking a ban on the sale of author Arundhati Roy’s new book over its cover photo showing her smoking.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Nitin Jamdar and Justice Basant Balaji rejected the petition filed by Kochi resident Rajsimhan, who alleged that the cover of Mother Mary Comes to Me violated statutory provisions by depicting the author smoking without the mandatory health warning.

Counsel for the Booker Prize -winning author countered that the petition lacked proper research and had overlooked the publisher’s disclaimer, which clearly stated that the image was not intended to promote smoking.

The bench observed that any purported breach of Section 5 of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003, which prohibits direct or indirect advertisement of tobacco products, must be examined by the competent authority under the Act.

Finding that the petitioner had neither approached the concerned authority nor taken note of the disclaimer, the court ruled that invoking its extraordinary jurisdiction through a PIL was unjustified. Dismissing the plea, the court cautioned that PILs should not be misused as instruments for self-publicity or personal vendetta.