Gujarat Food and Drug Control Administration (FDCA) will be invoking provisions under the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisement) Act, 1954, for the first time to confiscate a large stock of highly priced 'remedial' products from the market and also to initiate strict penal action against the manufacturers of such products.

The Gujarat FDCA has taken the Indore-based P. Rajyogi Herbals and Ratan Ayurvedic Sanstan to task as their products have been flooded in the Gujarat market with false claims. The company has also advertised in the local newspapers and in public places about these products.

The products which have been seized from the market includes Sudol, which is claimed to be a herbal cream effective to enlarge underdeveloped breast, 'High Top' a tablet promoted for height enhancement, and Oberid, a capsule meant for fat loss. All these brands are manufactured and marketed by the Indore-based company. These products, according to H G Koshia, joint commissioner, FDCA, Gujarat, who launched the mass hunt against the violation of this particular Act, are highly priced and massively advertised in the State.

The Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisement) Act, 1954, makes advertising of sex tonics and sex stimulants, abortion, contraception, uterine tonics and menstrual disorder regulators a cognizable offence. It also prohibits advertisements about diagnosis, cure, mitigation or prevention of 54 diseases and disorders listed in the Act such as cancer, diabetes, epilepsy, leucoderma, paralysis, sexual impotence etc. The bill-boards in public places and the local train and railways, advertisement pages of news papers and glossy and not so glossy magazines, and now the electronic media, however, mock the law-making and law-enforcing agencies in the face, says Koshia.

The officials at the Gujarat FDCA informed that the stock which is to be seized from the market would be worth Rs 15 to 20 crore as most of the products identified violating this rule is highly priced and already been purchased by the stockists and retail outlets.