Maharashtra's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently sent a proposal to the state government that would enable stringent action against food adulteration in Maharashtra.
In its proposal, FDA said that with the advent and proper implementation of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954, in the year 1972, most of the food adulteration had been prevented, hitherto. Similarly, the effectiveness of the work of the food safety officers in the state can be increased only when proper action is taken - from filing of First Information Report (FIR) in the police station against adulterators to court proceedings thereafter.
In this regard, “At present, if a food safety officer finds any malpractices or any flouting of rules and regulations by the food business operators in the state, an FIR is registered in the police station against those perpetrators of the crime and thereafter drag them to the court. However, sadly, these culprits free themselves from such cases as the punishments granted are 'Non-cognizable & bailable,' which makes our efforts to curb any malpractices difficult,” an official from FDA revealed on the condition of anonymity.
Therefore, the authorities have asked the state government to make amendments to the classification of offences to Section 262 & 263 under Section 30 (2) Subsection (a) of Indian Penal Code (IPC), where the aforesaid cases are being handled to detect malpractices and make punishments as deterrent as possible.
According to the current Indian Penal Code, Section 30(2) Subsection (a): 272 under adulteration of food and drink intended for sale - whosoever adulterates any article of food and drink, so as to make such article noxious as food or drink, intending to sell such article as food or drink or knowing it to be likely that the same will be sold as food or drink, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six months or with fine which may extend to Rs 1,000 or both. Similar, is the punishment stated under the IPC Section 273, under sale of noxious food or drink. These are termed to be 'Non-Cognizable-Bailable.'
The officials have stressed in their proposal to bring in changes under those IPC sections from Non-Cognizable-Bailable to Non-Bailable -Cognizable stating that it would ease out the officials work to detect adulteration and help in their serious effort to punish adulterators who always look for an easy escape.
“The task is never ending and it is continuous, in the long run we are facing the crunch of manpower that is evident to all therefore, to bring in control, it is necessary to enforce stringent action against flouting of rules and regulations,” the official explained FDA’s stand.
It was also noted in the proposal that Uttar Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal were the only states to be successful with such a move in the past.
The official then mentioned that the impact of this change would be 10 times higher. He pointed out that the number of complaints related to adulteration for last year in the state was 500 out of which 250-350 complaints were majorly from Mumbai due to the awareness among the consumers. However, 90 per cent of the complaints were vague. “The number of vague complaints related to food, these laws would be a tool to put forth stern action to deal against food adulteration, as otherwise all our efforts would be in vain with such less manpower to tackle the issue,” he concluded.
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