Surrogate advertising has come under fresh scrutiny in India after Maharashtra’s Food and Drug Administration issued a formal warning to three of Bollywood’s biggest names. Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn and Tiger Shroff have been told to stop appearing in a promotional campaign for Vimal cardamoms, a brand widely recognised as a proxy for pan masala, a betel nut product that is banned in several Indian states.
The notice, made public over the weekend, marks one of the most high profile actions taken against celebrity endorsers since India began tightening its stance on indirect product promotion. It also lands amid a broader food safety drive that has already touched restaurants, foreign fast food chains and grocery warehouses across Maharashtra.
The Notice to Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn and Tiger Shroff
According to the state authority, the Vimal cardamom advertisement featuring the three actors shows them in a festive celebration, throwing saffron coloured powder on one another. The commercial has reportedly drawn more than 100 million views on YouTube, giving it considerable reach among Indian audiences.
Officials examined the advertisement and concluded that it primarily serves to promote the Vimal brand name, which consumers associate mainly with its pan masala product rather than with cardamoms. Pan masala, a betel nut mixture sold in small packets for a few rupees, is considered harmful to health, particularly when consumed alongside tobacco. Several Indian states have restricted or banned its sale, though enforcement and branding around it have long been contested.
The Maharashtra authority stated that Indian law restricts advertisements considered misleading and asked the actors to remove the campaign from their social media accounts, refrain from appearing in further broadcasts of it and provide details of their endorsement contracts with the manufacturer. The three stars have been given fifteen days to respond formally.
Maharashtra’s Wider Food Safety Drive
The warning arrives as Maharashtra intensifies enforcement under its newly appointed food safety chief, Tukaram Mundhe, whose tenure has been marked by a series of high visibility actions. In recent weeks, authorities suspended licences held by well known local restaurants and foreign outlets over hygiene violations, closed four Domino’s stores and shut down twelve warehouses belonging to major grocery retailers.
The crackdown has made Mundhe a prominent figure on social media in India, where his department’s actions are being closely followed. The surrogate advertising notice to the Bollywood actors fits within this same push, extending the state’s regulatory attention from kitchens and warehouses to celebrity marketing.
India’s Surrogate Advertising Rules Remain Unsettled
Surrogate advertising refers to the practice of promoting a restricted or banned product by marketing a related item that carries the same brand name, logo or visual identity. Companies that cannot legally advertise liquor, tobacco or pan masala directly often use a legal proxy, such as soda, music CDs or, in this case, cardamoms, to keep their brand visible to consumers without technically breaching advertising restrictions.
The practice has troubled India’s federal government for some time. Reports from 2024 indicated that authorities were drafting stricter rules to close loopholes after complaints that liquor companies were using branded glassware and music CDs to promote alcohol indirectly. Those proposed rules have yet to be finalised, leaving the current regulatory framework open to dispute in Indian courts.
This is not the first time a major Bollywood figure has stepped back from a pan masala linked endorsement. Veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan previously ended his association with the Kamla Pasand brand after saying he had not realised the campaign fell under the definition of surrogate advertising. That episode, along with the current notice to Khan, Devgn and Shroff, illustrates how frequently celebrity endorsers in India have found themselves entangled in the grey zone between legitimate branding and banned product promotion.
What Happens Next
For now, the three actors are expected to respond to Maharashtra’s notice within the stipulated fifteen day window. Whether they contest the classification of the Vimal campaign as surrogate advertising or agree to withdraw it remains to be seen. The outcome could carry weight beyond this single case, given the ongoing uncertainty around India’s advertising rules and the scale of Maharashtra’s current enforcement drive.
Until federal regulations are finalised, cases like this are likely to keep surfacing, testing how strictly individual states are willing to police the boundary between brand promotion and prohibited products.
Published in SouthAsianDesk, August 18th, 2026
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