The petition filed against the circulation of renowned author Arundhati Roy’s book Mother Mary Comes to Me over a cover picture showing her smoking was rejected on Friday, as the Supreme Court concluded that the author had neither promoted nor advertised smoking, viewing the public interest litigation as an attempt to garner self-publicity rather than a matter of genuine public concern.
The bench, comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi, considered the challenge to a Kerala High Court order that had earlier dismissed the plea seeking a ban, and it found no basis to interfere with the earlier decision since the book’s cover image was restricted to readers who willingly purchased it and lacked any element of public promotion.
The controversy began after the book’s release on 28 August, when a lawyer approached the High Court with a PIL alleging that the cover photo violated provisions of the 2003 Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act and the 2008 rules, which mandate that depictions of smoking must carry visible health warnings.
He argued that the absence of warnings on the cover amounted to an indirect advertisement of tobacco products and therefore breached the statutory framework intended to curb smoking-related promotion.
However, the High Court dismissed the petition on 13 October, noting that the plea appeared motivated by personal publicity rather than public interest, as the petitioner had omitted relevant facts such as the presence of a disclaimer printed on the back cover by Penguin India.
When the matter reached the Supreme Court, the petitioner’s counsel attempted to argue that the image showed Roy smoking a bidi without statutory warnings and even suggested uncertainty over whether the substance involved was tobacco or something else, yet the bench found these arguments immaterial in the absence of any promotional intention.
The court observed that Roy was an established literary figure and that neither her writing nor the publisher’s conduct suggested any attempt to encourage smoking, and it stressed that the book was not being marketed through large-scale outdoor advertisements that might influence the public or entice new smokers, since the cover could only be viewed by those who chose to buy the book based on its content and the reputation of the author.
Concluding that the PIL lacked substance and that the High Court had acted correctly in dismissing it, the Supreme Court found no reason to intervene and allowed the High Court’s order to stand.