The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) urged health minister
Ghulam Nabi Azad to evolve a scheme to compound offenses, under which
food business operators facing court cases for acts that are small in
nature or unharmful under the Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) Act,
1954 can compound the offenses by paying a token amount and get
themselves acquitted of the offense registered against them.
The Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) Act, 1954, was the predecessor of the Food Safety and Standards Authority Act, 2006, which came into effect on August 4, 2011. A copy of CAIT's communication to the minister has also been sent to K Chandramouli, chairman, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the country's apex food regulator.
B C Bhartia, CAIT's national president, and Praveen Khandelwal, the secretary general of the traders' body, stated, “Food businesses in different states of the country are administered by the state Food and Drugs Administration (FDA). A huge number of cases are pending in courts of law across the country. These are of petty offenses and are neither very grave nor have not caused grievous injury to the health of the consumers.”
“Many such cases are about twenty years old and are yet to progress beyond the initial stage. With the scrapping of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954, there is prime-facie no merit in continuing to fight cases registered under the said Act. Therefore, all such cases must be compounded,” the duo added in its written communication to Azad.
The trade leaders also suggested that if compounding of cases is not feasible, either a fast-track court or arbitration or reconciliation proceedings may be initiated to clear all the pending cases registered under PFA. “If this suggestion is implemented, it will help in clearing the waiting list of cases in the trial stage across the country,” added Bhartia and Khandelwal
The Prevention of Food Adulteration (PFA) Act, 1954, was the predecessor of the Food Safety and Standards Authority Act, 2006, which came into effect on August 4, 2011. A copy of CAIT's communication to the minister has also been sent to K Chandramouli, chairman, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the country's apex food regulator.
B C Bhartia, CAIT's national president, and Praveen Khandelwal, the secretary general of the traders' body, stated, “Food businesses in different states of the country are administered by the state Food and Drugs Administration (FDA). A huge number of cases are pending in courts of law across the country. These are of petty offenses and are neither very grave nor have not caused grievous injury to the health of the consumers.”
“Many such cases are about twenty years old and are yet to progress beyond the initial stage. With the scrapping of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954, there is prime-facie no merit in continuing to fight cases registered under the said Act. Therefore, all such cases must be compounded,” the duo added in its written communication to Azad.
The trade leaders also suggested that if compounding of cases is not feasible, either a fast-track court or arbitration or reconciliation proceedings may be initiated to clear all the pending cases registered under PFA. “If this suggestion is implemented, it will help in clearing the waiting list of cases in the trial stage across the country,” added Bhartia and Khandelwal
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