A public interest litigation in the Kerala High Court Thursday seeks a ban on the sale, circulation and display of Arundhati Roy’s memoir ‘Mother Mary Comes to Me’ with its present cover without a statutory warning.
The cover shows Roy smoking. Petitioner, advocate Rajasimhan, has arraigned the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Press Council of India, Kerala department of health and family affair, the book’s publishers Penguin India and Arundhati Roy as the respondents.
Posting the matter for September 25, a Division Bench of Chief Justice Nitin Jamdar and Basant Balaji sought for the Union Government’s reply on the petition.
In his petition, Rajasimhan wanted the Union and the state governments to issue a public notification that display, circulation and sale, either directly or online, is illegal and unlawful, pending final disposal of the matter in the court.
The petition said the depiction of smoking on the cover page without the mandatory health warning and in the form of a symbol of intellectual and creative expression, is a clear violation of the provisions of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act.
“In disregard of the settled legal principles, the cover page of the book prominently depicts the celebrity author smoking a cigarette, without any statutory warning such as smoking is injurious to health or tobacco causes cancer,” the petitions says, adding that the depiction amounts to promotion of smoking and tobacco products, particularly since Arundhati Roy is a global intellectual, and her actions exert a strong influence over the youth and the reading public, particularly teenage girls and women “who are still keeping aloof in the Indian society from openly and publicly displaying smoking and drinking habits”.
“The cover image of the author of the book smoking a cigarette, which is widely available in bookshops, libraries, digital platforms, and through promotional materials, thereby making it public, conveys a thoroughly misleading and unhealthy message to impressionable youth that smoking is fashionable, intellectually stimulating, and intrinsically associated with creativity,” the petition says, adding that the petition is not concerned about, and has nothing to do with, the contents of the book.
