IMA slaps Rs 1,000-crore defamation notice on Ramdev

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 26

The ongoing confrontation between the Indian Medical Association (IMA) and yoga guru Ramdev escalated further on Wednesday with the medical body serving a Rs 1,000-crore defamation notice on the latter, besides writing to the PM seeking sedition charges against him.

In the notice, the IMA’s Uttarakhand branch demanded a written apology from Ramdev in 15 days and a video statement clarifying matters on “anti-allopathy” remarks made by him last week. It also demanded removal of “misleading Coronil advertisements that claim to address the side-effects of Covid vaccines”.

The IMA also questioned the Haryana Government’s move to distribute Coronil among Covid patients, saying the product was scientifically not proven.

In a letter to the PM, the IMA questioned Ramdev’s recent contentions that “10,000 doctors died” after taking both doses of Covid vaccine. It said he should be booked for sedition as the statements tantamount to misinforming the public about inoculations.

Noting that 753 doctors had died in the first Covid wave and 513 in the second, the IMA said it was painful to see services rendered by nearly 10 lakh modern medicine practitioners being ridiculed as a “stupid system”.