Kerala High Court Rejects PIL Against Arundhati Roy’s Book Cover Showing Smoking

The Kerala High Court has dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed against author Arundhati Roy’s latest book Mother Mary Comes to Me, which features her smoking a cigarette on the cover. The petitioner claimed that the image violated tobacco control laws for not carrying the mandatory health warning.

A Division Bench of Chief Justice Nitin Jamdar and Justice Basant Balaji held that such matters fall within the jurisdiction of the expert bodies established under the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003 (COTPA), and not the High Court.

The Bench also criticised the petitioner, advocate Rajasimhan, for not disclosing that the publisher had already placed a disclaimer about smoking on the back cover. The Court remarked that the PIL appeared to be more about publicity than genuine public interest.

“Courts must ensure that public interest litigation is not misused as a vehicle for self-publicity or for engaging in personal slander,” the order stated.

The petition alleged that the image of Arundhati Roy smoking glamorised tobacco use and could influence impressionable readers, particularly teenage girls and women. It argued that such depictions amount to indirect advertisement of smoking, prohibited under Sections 7 and 8 of COTPA and the 2008 Rules, which require statutory warnings like “Smoking is injurious to health.”

However, the Court noted that the petitioner had refused to approach the appropriate statutory authorities under the Act before filing the PIL. Consequently, it dismissed the petition, reiterating that courts should not be used for publicity-driven litigation.

Senior Advocate S Gopakumaran Nair represented the petitioner.