Stale Food: Firm and Food Safety Commissioner Fined

KOCHI: A man who contracted acute Hepatitis A after consuming stale food purchased from a retail outlet at Maradu, got his grievance redressed when the Ernakulam Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum asked the company and the food department store to pay monetary compensation to the victim.

The forum asked the opposite parties, Pantaloon Retail India Ltd and Food Bazaar retail outlet, Nucleus Mall, Maradu, to jointly pay the compensation worth ` 1 lakh and an additional amount of ` 2,000 towards the cost of proceedings in the forum. The Food Safety Commissioner who is the third opposite party will have to pay ` 5,000 for not carrying out his duty even after the complainant lodged a complaint.

The forum observed that the food bought by the complainant, Anand Unnikrishnan, which included pulses, cereals and vegetables from the retail outlet at Maradu were stale. The response of the Food Safety Commissioner to the complaint filed by Anand proves that both the first and second opposite parties were distributing stale food.

In his reply, the Food Safety Commissioner said that the samples from the retail outlet were collected and directions were given to the Chief Food Safety Officer, Mobile Vigilance Squad, Ernakulam to report on the action. “This is a suffice evidence,” observed the forum. Besides, the discharge summary by the hospital clearly states that Hepatitis A is transmitted orally by consuming contaminated food and the victim had to spend ` 36,414.93 towards treatment expenses.

The Forum fined the Food Safety commissioner as even after claiming that the food safety officials collected the samples, the documents pertaining to it could not be presented before the forum. “It is a blatant negligence of duty. Besides,the sale of sub-standard food or unsafe food itself is punishable under Section 51 and 59 of the Food Safety and Standards Act 2006,” the forum observed.

The members of the forums were president A Rajesh, Sheen Jose and V K Beena Kumari.