Mumbai: Days after Shah Rukh Khan and his wife Gauri Khan announced several initiatives to help the central and state government in their fight against the coronavirus pandemic, the superstar has now opened his office for treating COVID-19 patients.

The local municipal body, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), took to social media on Saturday to thank Shah Rukh and Gauri for the help.

We thank @iamsrk & @gaurikhan for offering their 4-storey personal office space to help expand our Quarantine capacity equipped with essentials for quarantined children, women & elderly. Indeed a thoughtful & timely gesture, BMC's official Twitter handle post read.

Sharing the civic body's tweet, Shah Rukh and Gauri said they are glad to get the opportunity of contributing in BMC's efforts towards taking care of the people of Mumbai.

"When we say mybmc', then it's with a sense of ownership and pride in all the efforts your teams are putting up to fight COVID-19. We both are thankful that we could be a part of your attempts to help and care for Mumbaikars," the couple wrote on their respective Twitter handles.

The 54-year-old superstar on Thursday announced various initiatives to help the country during the crisis.

The actor has taken the help of his companies -- Kolkata Knight Riders, Red Chillies Entertainment, Meer Foundation and Red Chillies VFX -- to provide support to the central and state governments.

SRK along with Gauri and business partners -- Juhi Chawla and Jay Mehta -- will be contributing to the PM-CARES Fund through IPL franchise Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and will also make a donation to the Maharashtra CM's Relief Fund through his film banner Red Chillies Entertainment.

Apart from this, the actor's NGO Meer Foundation will work with the Maharashtra and West Bengal governments for the supply of 50,000 Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for the healthcare professionals and has also tied up with Ek Saath - The Earth to provide daily food requirements to over 5500 families for at least a month in Mumbai.

The NGO, in association with Roti Foundation, will provide 3 lakh meal kits to 10,000 to underprivileged people and daily wage labourers for at least a month in Mumbai and will support 100 acid attack victims in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Uttarakhand.

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New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court on Wednesday warned states and union territories of contempt action if they failed to act against misleading advertisements.

A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan perused a note submitted by senior advocate Shadan Farasat, who is assisting the apex court as an amicus curiae in the matter, and observed a number of states were non-compliant as indicated in the note.

"We make it clear that if we find non-compliance by any of the states and union territories, we may have to initiate proceedings under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, against the states concerned," the bench said.

The issue pertaining to misleading advertisements had cropped up before the top court while hearing a plea filed by the Indian Medical Association in 2022 alleging a smear campaign by Patanjali Ayurved Ltd against the Covid vaccination drive and modern systems of medicine.

The top court had highlighted the aspect of misleading advertisements being published or displayed in media contrary to the provisions of the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954 and the rules, the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, and the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.

During the hearing on Wednesday, the amicus said as per the affidavits filed by the states and union territories so far, virtually no prosecution under the 1954 Act was taking place.

While Section 3 of the Act deals with prohibition of advertisement of certain drugs for treatment of certain diseases and disorders, Section 4 relates to prohibition of misleading advertisements of drugs.

The bench referred to affidavits filed by some of the states and questioned why they hadn't acted on the basis of complaints received.

Some states, it noted, found it difficult to identify the violaters.

"We will take contempt action now," the bench said, "and we will threadbare examine the compliance made by each states."

The bench said it would consider the compliance made by Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Goa, Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir on February 10.

And if these states wanted to file further affidavits reporting compliance, they were free to do so by February 3, it added.

The bench said compliance by states including Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab would be considered on February 24.

It said compliance regarding other states and union territories would be considered on March 17.

While hearing the matter in July last year, the apex court said the Ministry of Ayush should set up a dashboard to make available to the consumers the details about the complaints filed on misleading advertisements and the progress made on them.

In April last year, the top court asked the Centre and state licensing authorities to "activate" themselves to deal with misleading advertisements.