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Justice Manmohan Sarin, a distinguished judge of the Delhi High Court dictated in a suit filed by a company that did not involve wine or spirits but food and one Sandhya Kabra of FSSAI and said that “If a policeman becomes a terrorist and extortionist, then who will have faith in him? The FSSAI does not understand my polite way of dealing with the matter. I think one officer has to be sent to jail.”
Justice Sarin was reacting to a policy by the FSSAI that required the food importers to deposit Rs. 25,000 to the customs officials before they released an NOC for such imports. He admonished the FSSAI officials for using an export law to extort money from the importers and hinted that further breaches would attract jail sentence for the officials.
It is a part of the procedure for the FSSAI officials to sample a consignment within 24 hours and either reject it or give an acceptance report. The plaintiff in this case had imported chocolates from Belgium in January and alleged that the FSSAI failed to carry out the inspection within 24 hours as they were required to do.
While delivering the hallmark judgment, Justice Sarin further added, “it is not good for my health. I just cannot understand why they are not testing the sample and releasing the same.”
In a similar judgment by the Mumbai High Court, the Hon’ble Court declared the advisory of asking the importers to deposit Rs. 25,000 for each produce as not legally valid. The Indian Drug Manufacturers Association and a nutraceutical product importer had approached the Hon’ble High Court last year and challenged an Advisory by the FSSAI demanding prior product approvals of dietary food and health supplements already licensed and existing in the market under the previous Food Adulteration Act.
The advisory by the FSSAI to get product approvals for all 80 nutraceutical products and pay RS 25,000 for each product was not justified and the court was pleased to cancel the Advisory, terming it illegal. For details of the case, please visit:
The wine and spirit importers are similarly required to deposit the money vide a bank draft and the officials are expected to come for inspection within 24 hours for each label imported. delWine had conducted a survey in Delhi a couple of months ago and discovered several cases where the wine importers were made to wait for over 4 weeks after they had deposited the required money with a simple explanation that the requisite staff was not available.
Due to the archaic laws that treat wine and spirit importers as ‘quasi criminals’ the importers are up in arms against the authorities and not amenable to approaching courts that they are empowered with by the Constitution. There are several other issues like labeling, unreasonable demand on samples to be tasted even if the wines are very expensive and the lot size is very small (think 6 bottles of Chateau Margaux or 2 bottles each of 4 wines of Premier or Grand Cru burgundies from a single producer). One has been so far resigned to the odds that are in favour of the FSSAI with unbridled powers.
The two judgments are expected to wake up the FSSAI authorities from their slumber and the intoxication of power that needs to be reigned in and hopefully make them aware of the social, ethical and now established legal responsibilities.
For a related earlier article, please visit
FSSAI- Scourge for Wine Industry in India
Subhash Arora
Tags : FSSAI |