Legal Challenges in Tobacco Control: Historical and Qualitative Analysis of Litigations in Karnataka.

Background: Tobacco use is a major cause of disease and death in India. Karnataka, a southern Indian state with 12 million tobacco users has a fair share of this burden. The Government of Karnataka has used an ensemble of regulations to reduce tobacco use. Studies indicate that litigations have been used by the tobacco industry to challenge tobacco control regulations at the national level. There is a dearth of studies on how litigations have been used at a state level.

Objectives: To historically analyse the tobacco-related litigations so as to better understand how laws/regulations have been used and contested by various stakeholders in advancing or resisting the tobacco control efforts in Karnataka.

Methods: We used a retrospective qualitative analysis of tobacco-related litigations adjudicated by the Karnataka High court. We systematically searched a legal database and selected 39 litigations for analysis. We mapped these cases in a spreadsheet and used thematic content analysis of the court judgements.

Results: Our study demonstrated that tobacco regulations and legal challenges arise from a range of laws related to food, pharmaceuticals, municipal affairs and taxation in addition to tobacco-specific laws. We found that tobacco regulations have been intensely litigated, predominantly by parties with commercial interests in tobacco that resisted these regulations. Comparatively, there were very few litigations from public health advocates demanding stricter tobacco control regulations.

Conclusion: Analysis of litigations helps in identifying legal challenges that inform tobacco control authorities to anticipate and prepare for future challenges in implementing tobacco control regulations. Tobacco control agencies need adequate legal personnel and resources to effectively respond to these challenges.