# Bollywood stars get notices over surrogate pan masala ads 2026-08-16T12:10:12+00:00 | Entertainment | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 2 independent outlets (4 source reports) Maharashtra's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued show-cause notices to Bollywood actors Shah Rukh Khan, Ajay Devgn, and Tiger Shroff for allegedly promoting pan masala through surrogate advertising. Tupaki.com reports that the notices were sent over their endorsement of a 'Vimal Elaichi' advertisement, which authorities claim indirectly promotes the banned 'Vimal Pan Masala' brand. The FDA is investigating whether the ad constitutes 'surrogate advertising', a practice where companies promote a legal product like cardamom to build brand recall for a banned or restricted product like pan masala or alcohol. The notices are not a final ruling of guilt but seek an explanation from the actors. Further legal action will depend on their responses. ## Coverage - tupaki.com - tupaki.com (2) - tupaki.com (3) - 123telugu.com This story was synthesised by AI from the 4 sources linked above. Updated: this story now draws on 4 sources. Last updated 2026-08-16T16:41:24+00:00. Tags: Ajay Devgn, Maharashtra FDA, Pan masala, Shah Rukh Khan, Tiger Shroff, Vimal Elaichi Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/bollywood-stars-shah-rukh-ajay-devgn-tiger-shroff-get-fda-notices-for-pan-masala-ad/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/bollywood-stars-shah-rukh-ajay-devgn-tiger-shroff-get-fda-notices-for-pan-masala-ad/#story-in-brief How this brief was made: an AI model read the reports linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. Stance labels are editorial classifications of how each outlet framed this story, assigned by the same model, not ratings of the outlets. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/