The Gujarat High Court on May 3 disposed of a PIL and ordered the Food and Drug Control Administration (FDCA) to ensure regular implementation of the Food and Safety Standard Act.

While disposing of the PIL, the bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Aniruddha Mayee observed that the food commissioner and the state food and drugs department are responsible for ensuring compliance with food safety regulations.

They should conduct regular food inspections and take necessary action by imposing penalties against those who adulterate food items.

Citing the plea as “vague”, the HC said that not a single case of the Food Safety and Standard Act and Packaging and Labelling Regulations, 2011 has been skipped by the HC.

Advocate CR Goswami told HC, “Many times food items in the state have been found adulterated. There must be a system and an alternative to identify and label non-vegetarian food items.”

“Though, as per food and safety regulations, non-vegetarian food items have been labelled with brown dots and vegetarian food items with green dots, non-vegetarian ingredients were found in the lab testing of vegetarian food items.”

The PIL was filed by Mumbai-based Jivdaya Mandli, seeking to show that many times certain non-vegetarian ingredients are found in food items that are labelled as vegetarian.

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