ITC shuts cigarette plants from May 4

Politics has descended once again into fiddling. Not this time of MPs’ expenses, nor of the books, but with mobile phones.

A man smokes a cigarette as he sits on a pavement along a road in Srinagar September 4, 2012.

REUTERS/FAYAZ KABLI/FILES

Thu May 5, 2016

India's biggest cigarette maker ITC Ltd shut its plants from May 4 to comply with a new stipulated pictorial warnings rule issued by the federal government, the company said in a statement.

India's top court told tobacco companies on Wednesday they must adhere to a new federal rule requiring much larger health warnings on cigarette packs, in a major setback for the $11 billion industry.

The court also transferred all petitions by cigarette manufacturers pending in various courts to the Karat High Court for further hearing. The companies had objected to the new federal rules.

"...the Company has had to shut its cigarette factories from May 04, 2016 until the Company is in a position to comply with the interim requirements pending hearing in the Karnataka High Court," the statement said.

(Reporting by Promit Mukherjee; editing by Susan Thomas)