Maharashtra's FDA has asked Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn and Tiger Shroff to explain a Vimal Elaichi ad

The Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration has issued show-cause notices to Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn and Tiger Shroff over their endorsement of Vimal Elaichi. The regulator's case, as India Today and The Hindu reported, is that the ad may be surrogate promotion of Vimal Pan Masala, a product Maharashtra has prohibited for a year from 13 July 2026 under section 30(2)(a) of the Food Safety and Standards Act.

The notice, dated 11 August, says the advertisement "prima facie appears" to promote the Vimal brand, "mainly associated with Pan Masala." Khan was served at Mannat, Devgn at his Juhu house, Shroff through his production company. They have been asked to stop appearing in the campaign, pull the posts from their own channels, and send contracts, briefs and a note on the due diligence they did before signing. They have 15 days from receipt. They can ask for a personal hearing.

This is a show-cause notice, not a finding. Under the Consumer Protection Act, the Central Consumer Protection Authority can fine an endorser up to Rs 10 lakh (Rs 50 lakh on a repeat) and ban them from endorsing anything for a year. The FSS Act has its own penalties for misleading food ads.

Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe has spent the past weeks raiding hotels and government canteens. The celebrity notices are a different kind of target, and he has said the rules are the same for everyone.

Surrogate ads for gutkha and pan masala are an old Indian habit: elaichi, saffron, a music CD, anything with the same colour and the same name. The stars are the reason the habit works. If the FDA is now willing to send paper to Mannat, the calculation for the next endorsement changes, even if this case goes nowhere.

The legal question is narrow. Is Vimal Elaichi a real product you can buy, or a way of keeping the Vimal name on television after the pan masala was banned? The FDA has asked the actors to answer that in writing.

The 15-day clock is running. If the replies are late or thin, the FDA says it can move to prosecution. None of the three actors has put a detailed public response on the record yet.