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Writer and activist Arundhati Roy is facing a public interest litigation (PIL) at the Kerala High Court over the cover of her latest book Mother Mary Comes to Me.
An advocate named Rajasimhan has filed a plea seeking a ban on the sale, circulation and display of the book over its cover picture of a young Roy allegedly smoking a beedi, without any statutory warning that smoking is injurious to health or tobacco causes cancer.
This, according to the petition, filed on Wednesday (September 17), is in violation of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003 (COTPA).
However, there is no provision in the Act that specifically governs or bars pictures published in books. It only governs the advertising of cigarettes and tobacco products as well as their representation in film. Here’s what the Act says, and why it may not apply to Roy’s book cover.
The COTPA was enacted to “prohibit the advertisement of, and to provide for the regulation of trade and commerce in, and production, supply and distribution of, cigarettes and other tobacco products.”
It bars smoking in public, restricts the advertisement of cigarettes and other tobacco products as well as their sale near educational institutions and to minors, and mandates the display of health warnings on the packing of these products.
The petition, a copy of which The Indian Express has seen, states that the book violates Sections 5, 7 and 8 of the COTPA.
* Section 5 prohibits the advertising of cigarettes and tobacco products.
* Section 7 restricts the production, supply, distribution, trade or commerce in cigarettes and other tobacco products to only when the product packaging or label contains warnings against the use of cigarettes and other tobacco products prescribed under the act.
* Section 8 provides the manner of the health warnings on “a package of cigarettes or any other tobacco products” — that they must be “legible and prominent”, “conspicuous” in size and colour, “boldly and clearly presented” and “visible to the consumer…before the package is opened”.
None of these sections will apply to the book cover, since they specifically deal with the sale and advertisement of tobacco products. While Roy’s book cover does feature a tobacco product, it neither serves as advertising nor packaging for beedis.
However, the petition argues that the cover picture “amounts to advertisement of the book and indirect advertisement and promotion of smoking and tobacco products, particularly since Ms. Arundhati Roy is a globally renowned public intellectual, and her actions exert a strong influence over youth and the reading public.”
That said, the back cover of Roy’s book does have the following disclaimer: “Any depiction of smoking in this book is for representation purposes only. Penguin Random House India (the publisher) does not promote or endorse tobacco use.”
The petition also relied on Rule 4 of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Rules, 2004.
Rule 4 further prescribes the size and other specifications for the board used for advertising cigarettes and other tobacco products by shops and warehouses, as well as what warnings they must contain — “Tobacco causes cancer” or “Tobacco kiils”. It also states that when a character in “cinema and television programmes” has “scenes with smoking situations and use of other forms of tobacco”, there must be a health warning placed at the bottom of the screen. These films would necessarily receive an ‘A’ certificate.
Another provision of the rule mandates that the brand names or logos of tobacco products must always be cropped out of “pictures to be printed in any form of print or outdoor media or footage to be aired through any form of electronic media”.
Since the rule deals with the advertising of tobacco products and their display in cinema, as well as the display of the brand names or logos of such products in publicly displayed images, its application to the book cover is not clear. The book cover only contains a photo of Roy smoking the beedi, without the brand name or logo of the beedi visible.
In 2006, the Centre constituted a 17-member steering committee, to act against violations of Section 5 of the Act. It comprises the secretary of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare as chairperson, along with representatives from the Union Ministries of Information and Broadcasting, Law and Justice and Consumer Affairs, along with the Press Bureau of India, the Advertising Council of India and the Press Council of India.
The petition does not refer to this committee or whether the petitioner had approached this committee before he filed the petition.
