The Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is learned to have issued show-cause notices to Bollywood actors Ajay Devgn, Shah Rukh Khan and Tiger Shroff, alleging that their advertisement for Vimal Elaichi amounts to surrogate advertising for Vimal Pan Masala, a product prohibited in the state.

The three actors are the latest to come under the FDA’s scrutiny as the regulator steps up its crackdown on gutkha and pan masala containing tobacco or nicotine, coordinating with police to invoke the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against eligible cases involving organised networks dealing in banned products.

The notices, issued this week, ask the three actors to explain their role in the advertisement, which in the regulator’s assessment,  creates an association with the Vimal Pan Masala brand and could amount to its indirect promotion. They were addressed to Devgn at his Juhu residence, Khan at Mannat in Bandra and Shroff through his production house, Tiger Shroff Productions LLP.

“Upon examination of the said advertisement, it prima facie appears that the advertisement promotes the Vimal brand, which is mainly associated with Pan Masala, a product prohibited for manufacture, storage, transportation, distribution and sale in the State of Maharashtra for a period of one year, with effect from the date specified in the Prohibition Order dated the 13th July, 2026, issued by the Commissioner of Food Safety, Maharashtra State, under Section 30(2)(a) of the FSS Act, 2006,” the notice states.

The FDA says the advertisement’s presentation, dialogue, product name and market context raise a “serious question” over whether it constitutes indirect or surrogate promotion of a prohibited tobacco-related product, with all three actors participating as brand endorsers.

The regulator has invoked Section 24 of the Food Safety and Standards (FSS) Act, 2006, which restricts misleading and deceptive food advertisements, and Section 53, which provides for a penalty of up to Rs 10 lakh for anyone who is “party to the publication” of a misleading food advertisement. It has said the actors’ direct participation as endorsers is liable to be examined under these provisions. The FDA has also cited the Food Safety and Standards (Advertising and Claims) Regulations, 2018. The three actors have been asked to respond.

The action against the actors comes as the Maharashtra FDA has stepped up enforcement across a range of food-safety concerns, from adulterated milk and food served at restaurants to the sale of junk food in and around schools and the manufacture and sale of banned gutka and tobacco-containing pan masala. The department has intensified inspections, seizures and action in several of these areas in recent months.

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Maharashtra has prohibited gutkha and pan masala containing tobacco or nicotine since 2012 under Section 30(2)(a) of the FSS Act, with the prohibition renewed annually. The current renewal came into effect on July 13, 2026. Between May 25 and July 31, the FDA raided 658 establishments where banned products were found, seized stock worth Rs 15.11 crore, registered 519 FIRs and made 701 arrests. It also seized 78 vehicles carrying banned goods worth Rs 6.6 crore.

On June 12, FDA Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe directed officials to coordinate with police to invoke MCOCA, 1999, in eligible cases involving organised networks dealing in gutkha, tobacco or nicotine-containing pan masala and similar banned products.

The Vimal Elaichi campaign had faced regulatory scrutiny earlier too, though under a different law and against the promoter. In 2018, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) issued show-cause notices to Vishnu Pouch Packaging Pvt Ltd, which promotes, advertises Vimal Elaichi under the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA), 2003, alleging indirect advertising of tobacco products, by hiring a Bollywood star to attract youngsters.

The company challenged the notices, stating that it was not manufacturing any tobacco product for ‘VIMAL’ brand in the domestic market. In January 2024, the Delhi High Court dismissed DGHS appeals against trial court orders staying them. The trial court had allowed the company to continue advertising products without tobacco, while the question of whether the campaign amounted to surrogate advertising remained contested. The HC observed the company had a “fundamental right to carry on business” of “pan masala sans tobacco so long as it has constitutional sanction”.