Indian Supreme Court on Tuesday summoned so-called fitness and religious guru Patanjali Ayurved for failing to respond to a contempt notice for issuing misleading advertisements and ordered yoga guru Ramdev to appear before it.

As per NDTV, a bench of the Justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah also summoned Patanjali managing director Acharya Balkrishna.

The Supreme Court last month pulled up Patanjali for prima facie violation of its assurances about its products and statements claiming their medicinal efficacy.

The court had issued a notice to Patanjali and Balkrishna, asking why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against them.

It noted today that Patanjali did not file a response even though it had held a press conference after its previous order. "Why haven't you filed your response yet? We will ask the managing director to appear in the court during the next hearing," the court said.

The order states both Ramdev and Balakrishna were prima facie in violation of Sections 3 and 4 of the Drugs and Remedies Act, which deal with misleading ads of medicines. The court also issued a contempt notice to Ramdev, co-founder of Patanjali, and asked him to explain why he should not face action for contempt of court.

What is Patanjali?

Patanjali also called Gonardiya or Gonikaputra, was a Hindu author, mystic and philosopher.

As per Hindu religion history, estimates based on analysis of his works suggests that he may have lived between the 2nd century BCE and the 4th century CE. Patanjali is regarded as an avatar of Adi Sesha.

He is believed to be an author and compiler of a number of Sanskrit works.

The greatest of these are the Yoga Sutras, a classical yoga text.

There is speculation as to whether the sage Patañjali is the author of all the works attributed to him, as there are a number of known historical authors of the same name.

A great deal of scholarship has been devoted over the 20th century to the issue of the historicity or identity of this author or these authors.