Review Food Safety Act: HC

While asking the government if it is willing to reconsider some of the provisions of The Food Safety and Standards Act 2011, the High Court on Friday observed that it might be difficult for hoteliers to establish laboratories to periodically test the food supplied by them. 

Justice A N Venugopal Gowda said, “Even star hotels in the country have not set up laboratories to test the food that is being supplied by them. How is it practically possible for small hoteliers to establish laboratories or to get the food supplied by them tested periodically? Has the government established enough laboratories to test the food supplied in hotels? The government should think of doing things that are practical, to ensure good quality food is supplied in hotels, and improve on it later on.”

While narrating an anecdote to describe the quality of food supplied in some hotels, Justice Gowda said, “We found a cockroach in sambar when I visited a hotel along with my wife 20 years ago, and I have not visited that hotel ever since. There should some mechanism to ensure that the quality of food supplied by hotels is good.” 

The solicitor general submitted before the court that it would be difficult for the common man to demand quality food despite paying for it unless the Act was implemented in its entirety. 

Hoteliers comply with similar provisions when they open hotels abroad. But they oppose it when such rules are enacted in India, he added. 

Justice Gowda directed the petitioners to specify the provisions that they are finding difficult to comply with, instead of opposing the Act in its entirety, during the next hearing, and adjourned the case.