Case 27 of 30 in Law Easy's Media Law series. Hamdard Dawakhana v. Union of India, Supreme Court of India, decided 1959.
FACTS
The Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954 restricted advertising of certain medicines and claims to cure named diseases. The petitioners challenged it under the Constitution.
WHAT THE COURT HELD
In 1959 the Supreme Court treated this kind of medical advertising mainly as trade, not as protected discussion of ideas, and upheld the core restrictions. But the petitioners partly succeeded: part of Section 3(d), which let officials add diseases to the banned list without clear standards, and Section 8, which gave broad seizure powers without safeguards, were struck down as severable.
EXAM POINT
Do not say the whole Act was upheld. The later Tata Press case treated this decision as concerned with advertisements of prohibited drugs.
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