The city government was asked on Wednesday by the Delhi High Court to examine and decide in two weeks a plea to ban the sale of tobacco products in Capital.
The city government was asked on Wednesday by the Delhi High Court to examine and decide in two weeks a plea to ban the sale of tobacco products in Capital.
A bench of Acting Chief Justice AK Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw gave the direction to the government, while disposing of a petition by Doctors For You, a registered society, and asking it to approach the Delhi Government's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Citing a media report of July 31, in which a Delhi minister had said the government should ban sale of tobacco products here, the bench asked the state to consider the plea as representation and decide the same in two weeks.
The Delhi government's Standing Counsel Najmi Waziri said steps have been taken by the state on the issue and if a representation is made to it, it would consider the same.
Appearing for the Centre, Additional Solicitor General Rajiv Mehra, meanwhile, told the bench that the government has written letters to various states to implement the Food Safety and Standards Act and some states have already banned the sale of tobacco products, invoking it.
The bench was hearing the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) which sought to ban tobacco products in the wake of a spurt in oral and lung cancer in the city.
According to the petition, filed through counsel Varun Chopra, eight states have banned the sale of gutka in their respective territories, but the Delhi government is yet to take any action.
"The Delhi government has not taken any action despite the Central government regulation," the petition said adding the oral cancer is on rise here.
The plea said under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, the Centre framed a regulation in 2011 empowering the state's Food Safety Commissioner to ban tobacco products.
According to the Food Safety and Standards (Prohibition and Restrictions on Sales) Regulations, 2011, gutka and other forms of chewing tobacco products such as zarda, pan masala, gul and bajjar which are toxic and addictive, should be banned from being sold in the state.
The states which have already banned gutka and similar products are Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Haryana, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Goa.
The petition said according to a study by the World Health Organisation's Regional Office for South-East Asia's on tobacco habits in Indian states, about 25 per cent of Delhi population consumes tobacco in some form.
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