The Delhi High Court has issued notices to the Union Government and the Delhi Government on a public interest litigation seeking directions to the two governments to take action against sorcerers duping thousands of gullible people in the name of providing magic cures for various ailments in the Capital.

The petitioner, Salek Chand Jain, through his counsel, Sugriv Dubey, submitted that hundreds of magic healers across the Capital were cheating naive patients but the Governments were taking no action against them despite the fact that there is an Act prohibiting advertisement and publicity for providing magic cures.

There were around 200 magic healers here of which 50 were operating in South Delhi cheating people, particularly women hailing from rich families, with impunity, the petitioner said. He said that there were as many as more than two dozen magic healers in Lajpat Nagar alone.

Recently, the Maharani Bagh police had arrested three sorcerers on a complaint by a lady that she had defrauded of her jewellery. These quack healers market themselves by distributing handbills, pamphlets and carrying out advertisements in newspapers in violations of various provisions of the Drugs & Magic Remedies Objectionable Advertisement Act, 1954, the petitioner said.

Quite ironically, just across the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) sat a Afghan national selling black shilajeet claiming to have curative powers for all diseases, Dubey said.

The petitioner further said that in the trans-Yamuna area, magic healers operate from important places and markets and advertised their magic treatments through handbills and pamphlets.

Jain urged a Division Bench comprising Justice Anil Dev Singh and Justice R.S. Sodhi to direct the governments to implement the provisions of the Act and save people from being cheated.

He further pleaded with the court to direct the Union Government to issue directions to the States to implement the Act. The court asked the respondents to file their replies by February 26, 2003.