Rajasthan High Court Directs State Police To File Affidavit On Steps Taken Against 'Menace' Of Online Sale Of E-Cigarettes
The Jaipur bench of the Rajasthan High Court has asked the State Police, specifically the officer-in-charge at the Police Headquarters who is handling the issue of online sale of e-cigarettes, to file an affidavit clearly stating what action has been taken so far against online platforms selling e-cigarettes.
While hearing a writ petition, the division bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice Uma Shanker Vyas observed, "from the contents of the petition, it is vividly clear that there is menace of online platform sale of e-cigarettes".
Calling for an affidavit on the matter the court further directed, "The affidavit is required to be filed by the officer-in-charge in police headquarter, who is dealing with issues relating to online sale of e-cigarettes and fully conversant with the steps which have been taken, action plan, if any, framed and also clearly state as to what action so far against online platforms selling e-cigarettes".
The Court highlighted that the reply filed by the Centre revealed that after the law was enacted, the implementing agency was the State for which instructions were also issued to the States, including Rajasthan from time to time.
The Court further perused the affidavit filed by the ACP, PCR, Commissionerate, Jaipur in 2022, and observed that the same disclosed nothing except a “paper exercise”. The court noted that the affidavit on the issue stated that,
“the department is in the process of formulating a mechanism to deal with such transactions and the police officers have their limitations…developing a mechanism to curb online transactions would require extensive know-how, technical infrastructure and experts etc. and the Government is taking effective steps to come out with the solutions for prohibiting such online transactions.”
Taking note of the Affidavit the court observed that it was filed way back on September 16, 2022, and so it was required to be placed on record as to what steps were taken to prevent and ban the sale of e-cigarettes on online platforms.
It thereafter directed for filing of an affidavit and listed the matter in the first week of February.
Case Title: Priyansha Gupta v Union of India & Ors.