Hon’ble S.V.S. Rathore, J.—This petition has been filed on behalf of the Love Care Foundation, registered society, who has approached this Court with a pious object of reducing the growing tendency of smoking among the Indian youths and thereby to create a healthy society free from several diseases.

2. Initially, the prayer of the petitioner in the instant writ petition was as under :

(i) A writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus commanding the opposite parties to ban the distribution and sale of cigarette and other tobacco products in public and open market and to implement plain packaging rule in cigarette and other tobacco products by prohibiting the use of logos, colours, brand names or prominent information on packaging.

3. But during course of arguments, learned counsels for the petitioner have fairly conceded that they have restricted their prayer only to the extent of implementing plain packaging rule in cigarettes and other tobacco products by prohibiting use of logos, colours, brand names or prominent information on packaging.

4. The case of the petitioner is that an attractive packaging is a pseudo mode of advertisement. The cigarettes are being packed in such an attractive packaging that it attracts the youths for smoking. The ill effects of smoking are well known.

The statement of Objects and Reasons of the cigarettes (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 1975, inter alia, provides:

5. Smoking of cigarettes is a harmful habit and, in course of time, can lead to grave health hazards. Researches carried out in various parts of the world have confirmed that there is a relationship between smoking of cigarettes and lung cancer, chronic bronchitis; certain diseases of the heart and arteries; cancer of bladder, prostrate, mouth, pharynx and oesophagus; peptic ulcer etc., are also reported to be among the ill-effects of cigarette smoking.”

(4) Similarly, the statement of Objects and Reasons of the Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Bill, 2001 provides:

“Tobacco is universally regarded as one of the major public health hazards and is responsible directly or indirectly for an estimated eight lakh deaths annually in the country. It has also been found that treatment of tobacco related diseases and the loss of productivity caused therein cost the country almost Rs. 13,500 crores annually, which more than offsets all the benefits accruing in the form of revenue and employement generated by tobacco industry.”

In the case of Murli S. Deora v. Union of India and others, (2001) 8 SCC 765, of that case, the question of passive smoking was before the Court and Hon’ble Apex Court, keeping in view the hazardous of smoking had issued several directions to protect, the citizens from the ill effects of passive smoking. These directions reads as under :

(9) Realising the gravity of the situation and considering the adverse effect of smoking on smokers and passive smokers, we direct and prohibit smoking in public places and issue directions to the Union of India, State Governments as well as the Union Territories to take effective steps to ensure prohibiting smoking in public places, namely:

(a) Auditoriums.

(b) Hospital buildings

(c) Health institutions

(d) Educational institutions

(e) Libraries

(f) Court buildings

(g) Public offices

(h) Public conveyance, including railways.

(10) Learned Attorney-General for India assured the Court that the Union of India shall take necessary effective steps to give wide publicity to this order by electronic as well as print media to make the general public aware of this order of prohibition of smoking.

6. After the aforementioned judgment of Hon’ble Apex Court the Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003 was enacted and thereafter the cigarettes and