IMA serves defamation notice on Ramdev

Dehradun: The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has served a defamation notice on Ramdev for alleged disparaging remarks against allopathy and allopathic doctors, demanding an apology from him within 15 days, failing which it said it will demand a compensation of Rs 1,000 crore from the yoga guru.

The six-page notice served on behalf of IMA (Uttarakhand) secretary Ajay Khanna by his lawyer Neeraj Pandey describes the remarks by Ramdev as damaging to the reputation and the image of allopathy and around 2,000 practitioners of it who are part of the association.

Terming the remarks of the yoga guru a "criminal act" under section of 499 of the Indian Penal Code, the notice demanded a written apology from him within 15 days of its receipt, saying a compensation of Rs 1,000 crore will be demanded from him at the rate of Rs 50 lakh per member of the IMA if he failed to do so.

The notice has also asked Ramdev to make a video clip contradicting all his allegations and circulate it on the social media platforms where he had uploaded his earlier video levelling them.

It further asked the yoga guru to withdraw a "misleading" advertisement from all platforms endorsing "Coronil kit", a product of his firm, as an effective medicine for COVID-19, failing which an FIR and a criminal case will be lodged against him by the IMA.

On Sunday, Ramdev was forced to withdraw a statement made in a viral video clip in which he is heard questioning some of the medicines being used to treat the coronavirus infection and saying that "lakhs have died from taking allopathic medicines for COVID-19".

The remarks were met with vociferous protests from the doctors' association, following which Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan asked him to withdraw the "extremely unfortunate" statement.

A day later, the yoga guru posed 25 questions to the IMA in an 'open letter' on his Twitter handle, asking if allopathy offered permanent relief for ailments such as hypertension and type-1 and 2 diabetes.

He went on to list modern day ailments such as Parkinson's disease and wondered if allopathy had any painless cure to treat infertility as well as to reverse ageing and increase hemoglobin.

Soon after, Ramdev's close aide Acharya Balkrishna took to Twitter, saying the yoga guru and Ayurveda were being targeted by allopathic practitioners under the IMA as part of a conspiracy.

"As part of the conspiracy to convert the entire country into #Christianity, #Yoga and #Ayurveda are being maligned by targeting @yogrishiramdev jee. Countrymen, wake up now from the deep slumber otherwise the generations to come will not forgive you," Balkrishna said in a tweet.