As a sequel of making belittling statements against allopathy and allopathic doctors, yoga guru Baba Ramdev invited big trouble from the Indian Medical Association (IMA) as the top medical body has on Wednesday served a defamation notice on Ramdev demanding an apology from him for making such remarks, else he will be demanded to pay Rs 1,000 crore as compensation. 

According to reports, the six-page notice was served on behalf of IMA Uttarakhand Secretary Ajay Khanna by his advocate Neeraj Pandey. In the notice, the IMA has said that the remarks made by Ramdev were in a fashion of damaging the reputation and the image of allopathy and around 2,000 practitioners of it who are part of the association. 

The IMA has underlined that the remarks from Ramdev against allopathy were a criminal act under section 499 of the Indian Penal Code and the association has demanded the yoga guru to issue a written apology from him within 15 days of the receipt of the notice and if he fails to issue an apology, the association will be demanding Ramdev to pay compensation of Rs 1,000 crore at the rate of Rs 50 lakh per member of the IMA.

The notice has further demanded the yoga guru to withdraw a misleading advertisement from all platforms endorsing "Coronil kit", a product of his firm Patanjali, as an effective medicine for the COVID-19 viral infection and if he fails to withdraw, the IMA will be lodging an FIR and a criminal case against him. Baba Ramdev has been running through controversy and outrage over spreading false allegations.

Recently, Ramdev has claimed that lakhs of people have died from taking allopathic medicines for COVID-19 and he also had questioned some of the medicines being used to treat the pandemic. His remarks had sparked outrage from the allopathy doctors and the IMA had protested against the yoga guru for his disparaging remarks. As the protests from the association had grown, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan had asked Ramdev to withdraw the statement. 

Harsh Vardhan has called Ramdev's remarks extremely unfortunate and urged him to take back his statement. However, on Monday, the yoga guru had posed 25 questions to the IMA in an open letter on his Twitter handle in which he asked if allopathy had offered permanent relief for ailments such as hypertension and diabetes. He further escalated the protests from the medical association by asking whether allopathy had any painless cure to treat infertility as well as to reverse ageing and increase haemoglobin.