Patanjali moves to court supporting PIL seeking Holistic Integrated Medicinal System for Medical Education and Treatment

New Delhi: Supporting the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking adoption of a "Holistic Integrated Medicinal System" in India, the Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev's Patanjali Research Institute approached the Delhi High Court yesterday praying to become impleaded as a party in the petition.

Noting that the intervention application seeking impleadment in the petition was not on record, a bench of Chief Justice S C Sharma and S Prasad granted one week's time to the applicant institute to bring it on record, adds PTI.

The high court was also informed the central government has filed an affidavit in response to the petition. It, however, said even the affidavit was not on record and granted two weeks' time to the Centre's counsel, who said the public interest litigation (PIL) was not adversarial, to bring it on record and listed the matter for further hearing on November 11.

Other parties involved in the plea are Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Ministry of Ayush, Ministry of Women & Child Development, Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Law & Justice.

Patanjali said it was supporting the prayers made in the main petition filed by advocate and petitioner Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay. The main plea calls for an "Indian holistic approach" in medical education and practice instead of the "colonial segregated way" of having different streams of allopathy, ayurveda, yoga and homeopathy.

Also Read: Delhi HC defers plea hearing against Baba Ramdev remarks on Allopathy

As per the latest media report by Live Law, filing the plea, advocate Upadhyay argued that instead of segregated ways of medical treatment including Allopathy, Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy, the approach towards medical education and medical treatment should be holistic and should encompass courses of all branches. 

In this regard, the petitioner insisted that the issue involves "Constitutional obligations" of the government and the Right to Health ensured under Articles 21, 39(e), 41, 43, 47, 48(a), 51A of the Constitution.

"Modern medicine practitioners have remained confined to their own niche which has restricted them to avail knowledge of other medicinal practices and thereby cannot benefit the diseased individuals by using other therapeutic regimens. Moreover, established provisions regarding their practice doesn't permit them to use other medicinal systems in order to provide maximum health benefits. Henceforth, it is highly needed to establish integrated medicinal system to enable those practitioners who are willing to prescribe medicines of other domains," stated the plea.

It was argued in the main plea that 70 percent of India's population live in the rural areas while 52 percent of the total allopathic doctors practice in only five states of the country.

Apart from this, the plea also argued that deaths due to prescription drug overdose between 2006 and 2014 rose by 123 percent globally. Apart from this, serious but non-fatal prescription drug overdose outcomes also increased during this period, argued the plea.

In its intervention application, Patanjali's counsel senior Advocate Inderbir Singh Alag informed the HC bench that they are supporting the prayers in the main PIL. At this outset, the counsel referred to the Prime Minister's address on the Independence Day, where PM Modi had talked about adopting a holistic approach in Medicine, adds India Today.

While the bench agreed to the submissions, it also asked the parties if they have filed their responses. Responding to this the counsel replied, "We have filed a reply already."

Taking note of the fact that the impleadment application was not on record, the bench therefore asked the Counsels representing Patanjali for placing the same on record within one week.

It should be mentioned in this context that while considering a plea by Indian Medical Association (IMA), which sought to control the derogatory statements and "smear campaign" by the Yoga Guru against the vaccination drive and modern medicines, the Supreme Court bench recently slammed Baba Ramdev for his derogatory statements against modern medicine system and its doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The bench comprising of Chief Justice of India NV Ramana and Justices Hima Kohli and CT Ravikumar observed, "What happened to Baba Ramdev? He can popularise his system, but why should he criticise other systems.We all respect him, he popularized yoga but he shouldn't criticize other systems. What is the guarantee that his system will work? He cannot refuse doctor system. He must exercise restraint in abusing other systems."

Also Read: SC Slams Ramdev over plea by IMA, says he shouldn't criticize other systems of medicine