If the lead content is within permissible limits, the company can start the sale of its products. The company also said that it will remove the 'no added MSG' tag from its packets.
The Bombay High Court on Thursday quashed an order passed by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), imposing a nation-wide ban on the manufacture and sale of Maggi noodles, a product of Nestle India Private Limited.
A division bench of Justice V M Kanade and Justice B P Colabawala held the ban order as arbitrary and unjust. However, it directed the company to re-test samples of the nine variants of the noodles at three independent laboratories – in Punjab, Jaipur and Hyderabad -- to ascertain the amount of lead within six weeks.
If the lead content is within permissible limits, the company can start the sale of its products. The company also said that it will remove the 'no added MSG' tag from its packets.
On June 5, FSSAI issued the ban order, stating that a test carried out at a laboratory indicated high presence of lead content, which is harmful to the health of consumers. A day later, state Food and Drug Adminis tration (FDA) issued a similar order, imposing the ban in Maharashtra.
The judges ruled that the principles of natural justice had not been followed in this case as the company had not been given a show-cause notice before imposing the ban. The high court was also of the opinionthat the laboratory in which the samples were tested was not affiliated to the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL).
The samples for fresh test would be drawn from 750 crates. The FSSAI and FDA sought a stay on the judgment, in order to appeal in the apex court. However, the request was turned down by the court. The company gave an undertaking that it would not manufacture or sell Maggi noodles till the results of the three laboratories were received.
On a plea by food regulators that the petition filed by Maggi was not maintainable, the high court said it had the jurisdiction to hear the matter under powers derived by it under the Article 226 of the constitution.
Nestle had argued that its product did not contain 'lead' in excess of permissible ceiling and challenged the tests by FSSAI and FDA, while the food regulators contended that the lead content in noodles detected during tests in reputed laboratories was harmful to public health.
The High Court had earlier asked both sides to mutually decide on a suggestion by the judges to give their consent for a fresh independent test. However, the parties did not arrive at a consensus, following which the bench directed the company to go in for a fresh test in three renowned labs across the country.
The court made it clear that it was ordering a fresh test of Maggi samples because it had consumer interest uppermost in its mind and also because it wanted the issue to be resolved amicably.
According to FSSAI, 30 out of 72 samples of the popular Maggi noodles had tested positive for dangerously high levels of lead and even MSG, despite packets proclaiming 'no added MSG'.
“The action of the state in not supplying the material on the basis of which the action was taken and not giving a personal hearing to the petitioner and issuing a ban order when the petitioner itself had withdrawn the product clearly falls within the four corners of arbitrariness and is therefore violative of Articles 14 and 19 of the Constitution of India,” the judgment said.
In fact, the entire sequence culminating in the imposition of ban on June 5 shows that there is something more than what meets the eye, which has resulted in passing the impunged orders.
The maximum penalty for misbranding product even in criminal prosecution as laid down under Section 52 of the Act is to the extent of Rs 3 lakh. Misbranding of the product, therefore, could not be a ground for banning the product indefinitely.
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