Footage broadcast during Rajasthan Royals' victory over Punjab Kings on April 28 shows captain Riyan Parag smoking a vape inside the team's dressing room - an act that violates BCCI guidelines and, more significantly, falls under a categorical legal prohibition in India. The visuals, which spread rapidly across social media, show Parag with the device in the presence of teammates including Yashasvi Jaiswal and Dhruv Jurel, with no apparent concern for the setting or the rules that govern it.
What the Law Actually Says About Vaping in India
India is among a relatively small but growing number of countries that have moved to ban e-cigarettes and vaping products outright rather than regulate them. The Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes Act, 2019, bans the production, manufacture, import, export, transport, sale, distribution, storage, and advertisement of e-cigarettes across the country. Violation of this law carries criminal penalties, including imprisonment. This is not a soft advisory or a workplace policy - it is a hard legislative prohibition with teeth.
The distinction matters here. Parag's conduct is not simply a breach of internal sporting conduct rules. If pursued, it could attract scrutiny under a national law that treats possession and use of a vaping device as an offence. Whether authorities choose to act is a separate question, but the legal exposure is real and non-trivial.
A Pattern of Oversight Within the Franchise
The incident does not exist in isolation. Weeks earlier, Rajasthan Royals' team manager Romi Bhinder was caught using a mobile phone inside the dugout - another clear violation of BCCI protocols, which strictly prohibit the use of personal communication devices in restricted areas during live broadcasts. That episode passed with limited consequence. The recurrence of a conduct-related incident within the same franchise in the same period raises a legitimate question about internal compliance culture, not individual lapse.
Broadcast cameras capturing both incidents suggests that these violations are not happening in genuinely private moments. The dressing room, while designated as a team space, remains within the production perimeter during live events. That two separate violations have now been caught on camera within weeks of each other points to a broader normalisation of rule-breaking within the environment - a concern that extends well beyond any individual.
The Broader Public Health Dimension
India's 2019 ban on e-cigarettes was grounded in public health concerns, particularly around youth exposure. Vaping products had been aggressively marketed as safer alternatives to conventional tobacco, a claim that health regulators in multiple countries have contested or partially walked back. The aerosol produced by vaping devices contains nicotine, heavy metals, and volatile organic compounds - none of which are without risk, though the long-term harm profile continues to be studied.
The concern with high-profile individuals using such products in visible settings is straightforward: it normalises use. When a prominent figure is seen vaping casually, in front of peers, with no apparent friction, it sends a message that the prohibition is toothless or irrelevant. This is especially significant in a country where the ban was enacted with specific intent to prevent a vaping culture from taking root before it could entrench itself the way cigarettes did.
What Happens Next - and What Should
The BCCI has not yet issued a public statement on the footage. Standard procedure would involve the franchise being asked to respond, followed by whatever disciplinary process the board deems appropriate under its code of conduct. Given that this is not merely a conduct matter but one touching on a statutory prohibition, the board faces some pressure to treat it with greater seriousness than a routine fine or warning would suggest.
Beyond the immediate disciplinary question, the incident is a prompt for broadcasters, franchises, and the governing body to revisit what oversight actually looks like inside dressing rooms during live events - and what accountability mechanisms exist when the camera catches what internal enforcement misses.