The Supreme Court (SC) has acknowledged the efforts of the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) towards self-regulation of advertisements including those from the Department of Ayush towards co-regulating misleading ads which violates ASCI's advertising code.
In its recent judgement, Common Cause, a registered Society versus Union of India and Ors, it affirmed the self-regulatory mechanism put in place for advertising content by ASCI. The SC concurred that ASCI serves as an effective pre-emptive step to statutory provisions in the sphere of media regulation for TV and Radio programmes in India.
“After carefully analyzing the provisions of the Cable TV Act and Rules, as well as the submissions made by the Central Government regarding the necessity of self-regulation in media, the Court concluded that the current regulatory mechanism involving both statutory and self-regulatory system serves as a sufficient media content regulator and needs no interference. The grievance redressal platform provided by self-regulatory bodies like ASCI, therefore, function as the first step for aggrieved consumers against content in the media which might not be in line with the existing laws,” according to the ASCI press note.
ASCI's work has been recognized earlier by various government bodies like Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB), the Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA), Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and the Department of Ayush towards co-regulating misleading advertisements which violates ASCI's advertising code.
According to Dr. DBA Narayana, pharma consultant, Ministry of Ayush has recently signed an agreement with ASCI for monitoring and regulating advertisement of Ayurveda products. This will stall companies making tall, unproven claims of their products. The ads of some of these companies are not only unethical, but illegal, as they tend to be ‘disparaging entire Categories or products of other firms’. Now with the Supreme Court stating that everything need not be regulated by government alone, and if the industry bodies come up with good self-regulation mechanisms, especially in the interest of pubic, such mechanisms are recognized as sufficient and needs no interference, he added.
“But this debate has gone on for years. Therefore it is a good move and specifically for the Ayush sector which seems to be making too much of claims. In the context of consumer products and ayurvedic products which are becoming popular, all sections of the industry need to follow the ASCI route of self-regulation, as a first step, which some sections of the industry had objected to”, said Dr. Narayana.
Commenting on the Supreme Courts’ directive, S K Swamy, ASCI chairman said, “It’s a moment of pride and honor for ASCI to have received the highest form of recognition from the Supreme Court of India. This is extremely encouraging as this order endorses ASCI’s processes for self-regulating advertising content and therefore, motivates us further to strengthen our efforts towards protecting the legitimate interests of consumers from misleading, indecent, harmful and unfair advertisements.”