Three of Hindi cinema’s biggest names are back in a fight that Bollywood thought it had put to bed in 2022—and this time, it isn’t Akshay Kumar in the crosshairs.
On August 11, 2026, Maharashtra’s Food and Drug Administration sent out show-cause notices to Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn and Tiger Shroff. The trigger: a 2024 advertisement for Vimal Elaichi, a cardamom mouth-freshener, that the FDA says isn’t really about cardamom at all. According to the regulator, it’s a workaround to keep a banned pan masala brand in front of Indian audiences.
The notices went out the way these things usually do—quietly, by post, to home addresses. Khan’s copy went to Mannat, his Bandra bungalow. Devgn’s went to his Juhu residence. Shroff, who doesn’t have the same decades-long paper trail with the brand, was served through his production house, Tiger Shroff Productions LLP.
- The core allegation is “surrogate advertising.” The Maharashtra FDA doesn’t dispute that Vimal Elaichi is a legal cardamom product—it argues the shared “Vimal” branding indirectly keeps the banned Vimal Pan Masala brand visible to consumers.
- Three actors, three separate notices, one 15-day deadline. Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn and Tiger Shroff were each served on August 11, 2026, and must respond in writing—with contracts, campaign briefs, and due-diligence records—within 15 days.
- It’s tied to a specific state ban. Maharashtra prohibited the manufacture, storage, transport, distribution and sale of pan masala statewide for one year under a July 13, 2026 order—that ban is the legal backbone of the FDA’s case.
- This isn’t the first Vimal Elaichi controversy. Akshay Kumar faced nearly identical backlash in 2022 for the same brand, apologised publicly, donated his fee, and exited—a precedent that’s likely shaping how this case is read.
- Real penalties are possible, but nothing’s decided yet. Under consumer protection law, the actors could face fines between roughly ₹10 lakh and ₹50 lakh and an endorsement ban of up to three years—but a show-cause notice is a chance to respond, not a finding of guilt.
- There’s political pushback on the target. NCP MLA Rohit Pawar has publicly argued the FDA should go after the Vimal company itself rather than the actors who appeared in its ad—a debate likely to shape how the actors frame their defense.
So What’s Actually in the Notice?
Nine pages, signed by Maharashtra’s food safety commissioner, Tukaram Mundhe. The core argument is narrower than it might sound at first: nobody is saying elaichi is illegal. What the FDA is objecting to is the name. “Vimal” is a brand identity built almost entirely around pan masala—and under a state order dated July 13, 2026, that product is banned outright across Maharashtra for a year: no manufacturing, no storage, no transport, and no sale.
Slap that same name on a tin of cardamom, the FDA’s reasoning goes, and you’re not launching a new product. You’re keeping the old brand’s face in front of consumers while technically selling something else. That’s surrogate advertising—a tactic liquor companies have leaned on for years, promoting soda water, playing cards, or music CDs under a spirits brand’s name to get around advertising restrictions.
Maharashtra FDA has issued show-cause notices to Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn and Tiger Shroff over a Vimal Elaichi advertisement, alleging it could amount to surrogate promotion of prohibited pan masala. pic.twitter.com/15gWCBPLC0
— Nav Bharat Journal (@nbharatjournal) August 17, 2026
The notice spells out what the actors are now expected to do:
- Stop appearing in or endorsing the campaign, effective immediately
- Pull the ad and any related promotional content off their own social media, websites, and other platforms they control
- Stay out of any further broadcast, publication or distribution of the ad, in any form
- Hand over the signed endorsement contracts, campaign briefs, payment details, and whatever due-diligence checks they (or their teams) ran before agreeing to the deal
- Reply in writing, with documents attached, within 15 days
This falls under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, and it’s not an isolated action—it’s one piece of a much larger FDA sweep across the state this year, one that’s also gone after adulterated milk, restaurant hygiene violations, and junk food being sold outside school gates.
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Haven’t We Seen This Movie Before?
Pretty much, yes. Rewind to April 2022, and it was Akshay Kumar standing where Tiger Shroff stands now—appearing in a Vimal Elaichi spot alongside Khan and Devgn and getting hammered for it online. Kumar folded fast. He posted an apology, insisted he had never knowingly endorsed such a product and never would, and announced he was walking away from the brand entirely. He also said he’d donate the whole endorsement fee to charity, which is about as clean an exit as a Bollywood star can manage mid-controversy.
It didn’t end there, either. Later that year, a public interest litigation landed in the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, naming Khan, Devgn and Kumar among others, arguing they’d fronted misleading surrogate ads—the petition even floated stripping some of them of their Padma honors. And Kumar kept getting dragged back into it: when old Vimal spots resurfaced on television in late 2023, he had to publicly clarify, somewhat testily, that those were leftover ads from a contract he’d already exited, not a sign he’d rejoined the brand.
Why Actors, and Not Just the Company?
That’s the question Rohit Pawar, an NCP (Sharad Pawar faction) MLA, has been asking out loud. His take: if the FDA has the power to go after someone, go after the people who own the Vimal brand—not the actors who showed up, read a script, and got paid to hold a tin of cardamom.
It’s not a fringe argument. It sits at the center of how India handles surrogate advertising more broadly—companies design these campaigns specifically to stay just inside the letter of the law, and the celebrities who front them often argue they’re not lawyers, they’re not brand strategists, and they signed what their agents told them was a legitimate elaichi deal. Whether that argument holds up depends heavily on what “due diligence” paperwork Khan, Devgn and Shroff can actually produce.
What’s Actually at Stake Here
This isn’t just an awkward news cycle for three men who don’t need the money. India’s Consumer Protection Act allows for fines between roughly ₹10 lakh and ₹50 lakh for misleading endorsements, and — more painfully for actors whose careers run partly on brand deals — a ban on endorsing any product for up to three years.
Worth being clear about one thing, though: a show-cause notice is not a verdict. It’s an invitation to explain yourself before the state decides whether to escalate. Khan, Devgn and Shroff haven’t been fined, haven’t been banned from anything yet and are legally entitled to make their case first. What happens over the next two weeks — specifically, whether their teams can show real due diligence was done before signing on — will shape whether this becomes a footnote or a genuine legal problem.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who exactly got the notice, and when?
Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn and Tiger Shroff, all on August 11, 2026, from the Maharashtra FDA.
What did they actually do wrong, according to the FDA?
Nothing illegal on its face—they appeared in an ad for a legal cardamom product. The FDA’s objection is that the ad’s branding is close enough to Vimal Pan Masala, a banned product, that it functions as promotion for the banned brand by proxy.
Is Vimal Elaichi itself banned?
No. Cardamom mouth fresheners aren’t restricted. The problem, per the FDA, is the shared “Vimal” identity with the pan masala line.
What do the actors have to do now?
Stop endorsing the ad, take it down from anything they control online and respond in writing within 15 days with documents, including their contracts and due-diligence records.
Has anything like this happened before?
Yes—Akshay Kumar went through nearly the same thing with the same brand in 2022, apologised publicly, and exited the deal.
Could they actually be fined or banned from future endorsements?
It’s possible under consumer protection law—fines up to ₹50 lakh and an endorsement ban of up to three years—but nothing has been decided. This is the first step, not the last one.
Bottom Line
Two weeks from now, we’ll know a lot more: whether Khan’s, Devgn’s, and Shroff’s teams can produce paperwork showing they genuinely believed this was a straightforward elaichi campaign or whether the FDA’s read—that the ad was always meant to keep pan masala visible under a different label—holds up. Either way, the case has reopened a question Indian advertising has never fully settled: how much distance does a brand actually need from its banned product before a “clean” spin-off stops being a loophole?
Sources & References:
- The Tribune — “Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn, Tiger Shroff get FDA show-cause notice over ‘Vimal Elaichi’ ad”
- Deccan Chronicle — “Shah Rukh, Ajay, Tiger Face FDA Notices Over Vimal Pan Masala Ad”
- The Week — “‘Vimal Elaichi ad is for pan masala’: What Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgan, Tiger Shroff’s FDA show-cause notice says”
- DNA India — “Akshay Kumar will not be seen with Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn in Vimal ads anymore; here’s why” (2022–23 background)
Reporting current as of August 16–17, 2026, based on the FDA notice and coverage from multiple outlets. This is a developing story and may be updated as the actors respond.
