The stay order sought by the Ceylon Tobacco Company (CTC) to quash the Gazette for pictorial warnings on cigarette packs was refused by the Court of Appeals, Ada Derana reporter said.
The appeal was filed by the CTC against the Health Ministry directive requiring 80 percent space in every single cigarette packet allocated to display both printed and pictorial health warnings about the health hazards of smoking.
The application cites Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena as the first respondent and the Health Ministry Secretary as the second respondent.
The Ceylon Tobacco Company had initially claimed that the law did not empower the Minister to implement it, though Minister Sirisena issued a special gazette notification with all the regulations to implement the pictorial warnings on the cigarette packets with effect from Nov. 8, 2012.
