AVI in court
Since 2017, AVI has organised, funded and directed legal challenges to bans on e-cigarettes and vaping products in courts across India —Karnataka, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir and Tamil Nadu — taking some of these fights through multiple rounds of appeal. That work continues today: AVI is currently running an active case in the Delhi High Court against the flight ban on carrying e-cigarettes, the one major restriction the national ban under PECA, 2019 never touched. Few if any consumer bodies in India have pursued this fight as far, for as long, or in as many courts.
Separately, sellers and manufacturers have brought their own challenges to these bans — in Mumbai and Kolkata among other places. AVI is a consumer advocacy organisation, not an industry one, and has never funded, filed, or directed litigation on a vendor's or manufacturer's behalf — even in cases that drew on research and legal arguments AVI first developed and published. This page draws that line plainly wherever it applies, alongside every case AVI has organised itself.
Madras High Court — challenge to Tamil Nadu's ENDS ban (2018)
Madras High Court · Status: Disposed
AVI organised, funded and ran this litigation end-to-end: it commissioned the first draft, briefed a consumer petitioner — a former smoker who had switched to vaping — to bring the challenge, engaged local counsel to file and argue it, and directed strategy through to its conclusion. The petition challenged a Tamil Nadu government order banning ENDS manufacture, sale, and possession statewide, citing an RTI reply showing the state had no supporting study for the ban, and drew directly on AVI's own published research and rebuttals as evidence.
Delhi High Court — challenge to the flight ban on e-cigarettes (2022)
Delhi High Court · Status: Ongoing
AVI is fighting this case today. The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security prohibits carrying e-cigarettes in checked or cabin baggage on flights — a separate legal basis from PECA, so this dispute sits outside the national ban and remains open regardless of PECA's status. AVI identified and briefed two consumer petitioners, both vapers who had devices confiscated at Indian airports, retained counsel, and has directed the litigation since — arguing the ban is unsupported by any evidence of in-flight risk and conflicts with the government's own position that ENDS should be regulated rather than prohibited outright. The named petitioners are the individual consumers AVI brought forward, not AVI itself.
Delhi High Court — vendor challenge to the ENDS advisory (2019)
Delhi High Court · Status: Disposed
Sellers of ENDS products, joined by an individual consumer, challenged a central government advisory instructing states to prohibit ENDS manufacture, sale and distribution under the Drugs & Cosmetics Act. The court granted an interim stay, finding ENDS did not meet the statutory definition of a "drug" the government could regulate that way — a ruling other sellers elsewhere in India later relied on.
Delhi High Court — challenge seeking regulation, not a ban, of ENDS (2017)
Delhi High Court · Status: Disposed
An individual petitioner asked the court to direct regulation of ENDS on the model of public-place restrictions on cigarettes, rather than a ban. AVI was involved from the outset — retaining counsel to follow the case and moving to intervene — while a separate, consumer-focused writ was also considered. The government's responses in the case fed into the advisory that anticipated the national ban later enacted as PECA.
Jammu & Kashmir High Court (Srinagar) — challenge to the ENDS ban (2018)
High Court of Jammu & Kashmir, Srinagar · Status: Disposed
An individual petitioner challenged J&K's ban on ENDS — imposed by state circular and reinforced by a divisional order specific to Kashmir — as arbitrary and unsupported by any study, given the state's high smoking prevalence. A vendor separately sought to be impleaded, arguing for regulation under COTPA rather than a ban.
Karnataka High Court — challenge to the state circular banning ENDS (2017)
Karnataka High Court · Status: Disposed
One of AVI's earliest and most sustained legal fights: a PIL organised and pursued by HRPR, an allied advocacy organisation sharing leadership with AVI, challenged a Karnataka government circular banning ENDS, arguing the ban was imposed without any supporting study and was disproportionate given ENDS are less harmful than combustible cigarettes, which remain lawfully sold — the petition argued for regulation rather than a ban. AVI took the fight through multiple rounds of appeal before it was finally concluded.
Calcutta High Court — challenge to Customs withholding e-cigarette imports (2014)
Calcutta High Court · Status: Disposed
A commercial importer challenged Customs' decision to withhold an e-cigarette consignment at Kolkata Airport, after the Drugs Controller gave an adverse opinion but no law was found to actually restrict the import. This is the oldest matter on this page, decided nearly five years before the national ban.
Bombay High Court — seller challenges to FDA action on ENDS (2019)
High Court of Judicature at Bombay · Status: Disposed
Two separate, independently brought groups of sellers challenged Maharashtra's enforcement of the central ENDS advisory: a cigarette manufacturer whose e-cigarette stock was seized by the state Food & Drugs Administration, and a group of Mumbai vape retailers who filed their own challenge. Both obtained interim relief.