Patanjali's 'Dhoka' chyawanprash ad called rivals frauds — Delhi HC banned it outright

In late 2024, Patanjali Ayurved launched a television and social media campaign for its Special Chyawanprash fronted by Baba Ramdev. Rather than praising its own herbs, the ad told viewers existing chyawanprash on the market was 'ordinary', urged them to 'protect themselves from daily deceptions sold in the name of Chyawanprash', and branded rival products 'Dhoka' — fraud. Dabur, the category leader with over 61% share, sued in the Delhi High Court in December 2024.

The litigation record showed the campaign was not a stray spot: Dabur told the court that after summons were issued, Patanjali ran 6,182 advertisements against its product in a single week. Dabur also challenged the copy's specifics — Patanjali claimed its product used more than 51 herbs when only 47 were present, and an early TVC line implied only Patanjali possessed the Ayurvedic and Vedic knowledge to make 'original' chyawanprash.

On 3 July 2025, Justice Mini Pushkarna granted Dabur an interim injunction: Patanjali could praise its own product but had to delete the lines dismissing competitors as lacking knowledge or being 'ordinary' chyawanprash. The court noted such statements were 'untrue' and 'misleading to the public at large', and carried extra weight coming from a personality known as an ayurveda expert.

Patanjali appealed, calling the campaign permissible 'puffery and hyperbole'. In September 2025 a division bench warned the appeal looked 'aaltu faaltu' — frivolous — and threatened costs. Then on 10 November 2025, Justice Tejas Karia barred the 'Dhoka' ad outright: calling all other chyawanprash deceptive was generic commercial disparagement, not creativity, and Patanjali had 72 hours to take it down from YouTube, Instagram and every other platform.

The 'Dhoka' ad pulled from every platform within 72 hours; earlier TVC lines deleted; appeal mocked as 'aaltu faaltu' with costs threatened

The campaign's device was denigration, not differentiation: it framed a whole product class, including the market leader, as fraud — which Indian courts treat as commercial disparagement.

Execution doubled down on the legal risk: thousands of airings per week kept the exposure compounding even after Dabur filed suit.

Specific factual claims were left vulnerable: a '51 herbs' line that fell short at 47, and innuendo that competitors lacked authentic Ayurvedic lineage, gave the court concrete falsities to act on.

Patanjali misread the legal boundary, defending the ads as hyperbole — but the bench held that exaggerating your own product is lawful while denigrating rivals as a class is not.

You may say your product is best; you may not brand an entire rival category fraudulent. If the creative only works by attacking everyone else, it is a lawsuit with a jingle.

The November 2025 injunction ordered the 'Dhoka' ad off television, print, digital and social media within 72 hours, with the main suit set for hearing on 26 February 2026. The July 2025 order's line-by-line deletions — 'Why settle for ordinary chyawanprash made with 40 herbs?' among them — remain a template for what Indian courts will excise from comparative ads. The case has become the reference point for category-leader plaintiffs fighting generic disparagement.