Centre eases mandates in Self Declaration For Advertisements

On May 7, the SC while hearing the misleading advertisement case in respect of the health and food product of Patanjali issued mandates and guidelines to advertisers, advertising agencies and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB).

The issued mandate involved advertising agencies/advertisers to issue and submit a self declaration form to the MIB’s broadcast seva portal before the ad is aired. In the case of print media and internet ads, SC directed the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to set up a new portal within 4 weeks. The court had ordered that “No advertisements shall be permitted to be run on the relevant channels and/or in the print media/internet without uploading the self-declaration as directed above,”. 

On 3rd July, The MIB issued a draft advisory making serious changes to the mandate listed by SC. The draft advisory involved that the Self Declaration form shall only be given by those who are involved in food and health advertisement and not by others.  The ministry said that these Self declaration certificates would have to be uploaded annually on Broadcast seva and Press Council of India website. The reasoning behind MIB’s decision is that health and food products is an arena which has more likelihood of damage to consumers and the risk is real which was also the focus of the SC ruling on May 3.