SC lens on airport cigarette sale
The Supreme Court will decide whether international cigarette brands can be sold in duty-free outlets at the departure lounges of Indian airports without the statutory pictorial warnings.
The case centres on claims by a company, DFS India Private Ltd, that the cigarettes being sold in the duty-free outlets of departure lounges are “exports” and, therefore, exempt from the statutory anti-smoking warnings.
DFS moved the apex court after Bombay High Court last month refused to give it relief on its plea challenging the seizure of cigarette stocks by the customs at its outlet in the departure lounge of Mumbai international airport. “These are exports, and exports are exempt from carrying statutory warnings,” DFS counsel Mukul Rohatgi said today.
Rohatgi argued that the packets being sold at its duty-free outlet in the arrival lounge carried the warnings as they would be used in India, but not those being retailed in the departure lounge as they would be used abroad. The cigarette cartons in the departure lounge’s outlet had the warnings, but not individual packs, he said. “These are for use in Spain, Germany and elsewhere, for people flying out of the country.”
However, a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan rejected the argument saying: “Cigarette smoking is injurious wherever it is done — whether Spain, Germany and elsewhere.” Rohatgi countered by saying “if smoking is injurious, so are salt and sugar”. The apex court refused to grant him any interim relief but asked the customs to place its views.
So far, only one international brand, Phillip Morris, has carried warnings on its packs sold at duty-free shops in departure lounges.
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