Arundhati Roy book: Kerala HC dismisses PIL seeking stay on sale over cover photo showing her smoking

The Kerala High Court on Monday (October 13, 2025) dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) filed before the court by a lawyer on September 18, seeking a stay on the sale of Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy’s recently released bookMother Mary Comes To Me, whose cover photo shows her smoking a beedi.

The lawyer-petitioner had contended that the book did not have any statutory health-hazard warning label regarding smoking and that this was a violation of Section 5 of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2013. Later, it emerged that there was a written disclaimer regarding the ill-effects of smoking, at the back of the book.

While hearing the petition on Monday, a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Nitin Jamdar and Justice Basant Balaji said it was up to the steering committee constituted under the Act to decide whether the matter was an infringement of Section 5 of the Act, after hearing the parties. In this case, the petitioner, despite being made aware of, has refused to take up the issue before the committee.

He filed the petition without examining the legal provision and without verifying whether there was a disclaimer mentioned at the back of the book. In the light of the circumstances, the petition has been dismissed, keeping in mind the caution that the court must ensure PILs are not used a vehicle for self-publicity or for engaging in personal slander.

The petitioner’s counsel had contended last Tuesday that the disclaimer mentioned at the back of the book was insufficient and that it ought to have been published in a conspicuous manner. He said the photo sans a disclaimer on the front page had the potential to send a misleading message to impressionable youth, especially girls and women.

The Centre’s counsel had submitted then that apart from the steering committee, such complaints could be registered through an online portal set up under the national tobacco control programme. These options ought to have been tried out, rather than directly approach the High Court in the guise of a PIL.