Patna, Dec. 23: Patna High Court today stayed the state government's notification imposing ban on the sale of tobacco products.

The stay will be in effect till further high court orders.

On November 7, the government announced ban on the sale of some tobacco products such as pan masala, zarda or any other chewable tobacco products in the state. The order stated the manufacture, storage, distribution or sale of all tobacco products other than bidi, cigarette and raw tobacco ( khaini) would be banned for a year.

The ban on tobacco products was later challenged in the high court by a zarda factory in Muzaffarpur, RK Products from Andhra Pradesh and Rajat Industries of Maharashtra.

On November 13, the high court had directed the government to clear its position as to under what provision of law it has banned tobacco products in the state. The court of single bench of Justice Mihir Kumar directed principal additional advocate-general Lalit Kishore to file reply in this regard. . The Justice Kumar bench

On November 17, the single bench of Justice Kumar transferred the case to a division bench of acting Chief Justice Iqbal Ahmed Ansari and Justice Samarendra Pratap Singh. The petitioner's lawyer Prabhat Kumar today told the division bench that since pan masala comes under standardised food item, its sale is permissible and banning of it under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, was illegal.

Prabhat further pleaded that since zarda is not a food item, banning of the same by the food safety commissioner was contrary to the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.

The stay on the notification has come as a jolt to the state government as it was chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi at a function here on National Cancer Awareness Day on November 7 announced a ban on smokeless tobacco products, thus becoming the 11th state to do so. Manjhi had also announced that the tax on cigarettes, bidis and other non-banned products would go up from 30 per cent to 60 per cent in the state.