85 per cent warning: Big Tobacco moves Supreme Court

India’s tobacco industry has sought to delay strict new health warning rules by appealing to the country’s highest court, a move anti-smoking activists say could backfire given that the court has ruled against cigarette-makers in the past.

Earlier this month, Indian tobacco companies, some backed by “Big Tobacco” firms in the West, effectively went on strike by closing factories in protest against demands that 85 per cent of a cigarette packet’s surface be covered by health warnings, up from the older requirement of 20 per cent.

The industry estimates the stoppages cost it as much as $68 million a day, taking cumulative losses to up to $850 million.

Similar battles have pla-yed out around the world in recent years as governments try to discourage smoking. On a few occasio-ns, major tobacco producers have resorted to drastic action by freezing output. That tactic worked in India in 2010 when the government delayed a set of warnings proposed at the time after the industry shuttered plants.

But this time the Centre’s room to compromise is more limited, court documents and interviews with federal health ministry officials and activists suggest.

The documents show how a small group of hea-lth activists have outmanoeuvred the $11 billion industry and cornered the government into implem-enting the rules on April 1.

Their strategy has left the Supreme Court as one of the last avenues of appeal for cigarette-makers.