New Delhi, Aug. 5: The Supreme Court today directed the Union government to consider amending laws to make adulteration of milk an offence punishable with life imprisonment.
At present, no national law deals exclusively with adulteration of milk. Adulteration of food products, which cover milk also, entails a punishment of just six months in prison. The jail term can be compounded by paying a fine of Rs 1,000.
Adulteration cases now come under Section 262 of the Indian Penal Code and the Food Safety and Standards Act.
Bengal, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh have already amended IPC provisions to award life term for milk adulteration, the bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur, Justices R. Banumathi and U.U. Lalit said, asking the Centre to adopt similar rules for the entire country.
Through a series of interim directives since 2012, the apex court had asked states to suitably amend the law.
Today, the apex court passed the final directive, asking the Centre to take necessary steps to amend the law. The court was dealing with a PIL filed by one Swami Achyuthanand in 2012, seeking deterrent punishment against milk adulterators.
The order was issued after the court perused expert opinion that adulteration of milk with chemicals like baking soda caused several life-threatening diseases like pneumonia and diarrhoea.
The petitioner had relied on a 2011 report titled "Executive Summary on National Survey on Milk Adulteration" released by the Foods Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). The report concluded that 68.4 per cent of milk being sold in the country was adulterated. The worst performers in the survey were Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, Mizoram and Chhattisgarh.
"Since in India, traditionally infants/children are fed milk, adulteration of milk and its products is a concern and stringent measures need to be taken to combat it. The consumption of adulterated milk and adulterated milk products is hazardous to human health," the Supreme Court said.
"... It will be in order that the Union of India come up with suitable amendments in the Food Safety and Standards Act and the respondent, Union of India, shall also make penal provisions" on a par with the provisions contained in the state amendments," the court added.
"It is also desirable that Union of India revisits the Food Safety and Standards Act to revise the punishment for adulteration, making it more deterrent in cases where the adulterant can have an adverse impact on health," Justice Banumathi said.
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