FDA Issues Notices To Shah Rukh, Devgn, Tiger For Vimal Ad
By Manu Shrivastava
The Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued show-cause notices to actors Ajay Devgn, Shah Rukh Khan and Tiger Shroff over their participation in advertisements for Vimal Elaichi, alleging that the campaign amounts to indirect or surrogate promotion of Vimal Pan Masala.
The notice, a copy of which has been reviewed by The Draft, invokes Section 24 of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, and the rules and regulations framed under it. It specifically questions the actors' 'participation in and endorsement/promotional support' of advertisements relating to the Vimal brand Pan Masala/Elaichi.
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| A still from the Vimal Elaichi advertisement |
The FDA says the advertisement's presentation, dialogue, product name and market context raise a serious question of whether the campaign indirectly promotes a tobacco-related product. The actors have been asked to explain their role.
The action comes shortly after Maharashtra renewed its prohibition on gutkha and pan masala containing tobacco or nicotine. The current prohibition took effect on July 13, 2026. The FDA has reportedly intensified enforcement against the banned trade, with 658 establishments raided between May 25 and July 31, seizures worth Rs 15.11 crore, 519 FIRs and 701 arrests.
The legal question, however, is not entirely new.
Vimal Elaichi has for years occupied the uneasy space between a legally marketable mouth-freshener and a brand strongly associated in the public mind with pan masala. The campaign has repeatedly drawn criticism precisely because the same brand identity is used across products.
The controversy first became particularly visible when Akshay Kumar joined Devgn and Khan in a Vimal Elaichi campaign in 2022. Following a strong online backlash, Kumar apologised and said he would not endorse tobacco. He subsequently stepped away from the brand association.
When Tiger Shroff later joined Devgn and Khan in the campaign, public reaction again included criticism that celebrity endorsement was helping normalise or glamourise products associated with pan masala.
The concern is not confined to social media. A 2025 survey involving more than 38,000 responses from 314 districts found that 79 per cent of respondents said they continued to see surrogate advertisements for liquor and tobacco brands despite such advertising being prohibited. Sixty-eight per cent said they continued to see celebrities appearing in such advertisements.
That public unease has also been reflected in advertising and public-health debates. Analysts have repeatedly questioned whether elaichi and similar brand-extension advertisements are effectively vehicles for maintaining recall of products that cannot lawfully be advertised directly.
There is, nevertheless, a legal distinction that will matter.
The Delhi High Court, while dealing with an earlier dispute involving Vimal Elaichi, noted that a company has a fundamental right to carry on business in pan masala without tobacco, provided it has constitutional sanction. The question of whether a particular campaign crosses the line into surrogate advertising therefore remains one requiring examination on its facts.
The present Maharashtra FDA notices shift that question from advertising debate to regulatory scrutiny of the celebrity endorsers themselves.
For Devgn, Khan and Shroff, the immediate issue is therefore not whether Vimal Elaichi can be sold. It is whether the manner in which the Vimal brand is presented, and their participation in that presentation, amounts to indirect promotion of a product prohibited in Maharashtra.
Their responses to the notices are now awaited.
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