Government abetting safety violations by junk food majors through puppet panels: SC

The Supreme Court today hauled up the government for including representatives of soft drink companies on food standard panels intended to act on complaints against those very companies.

A bench comprising justices Dalveer Bhandari and A K Ganguly told the government to remove persons linked to food and soft drink companies from the statutory panels tasked to enforce safety and standards on edible items, saying that the inclusion of company representatives on supposedly independent panels was a clear breach of the mandate under Section 13(1) of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006. 

The court asked the Food Safety Authority to re-constitute the panels with independent scientific experts as members within two weeks and report back. 

The food authority had set up eight panels for laying down science based standards for articles of food and to regulate their manufacture, storage, distribution, sale and import in order to ensure the safety and wholesomeness of food for human consumption. 

A petition by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation alleged through its counsel Prashant Bhushan that there was a glaring conflict of interest, as the panels included employees of food item manufacturers like Coca Cola, Pepsi Co, Hindustan Unilever, Marico, Britannia, ITC, Nestle India, Hind Agro Industries, GSK Consumer Healthcare and Food Safety Solutions and International. 

In 2006, the government said it was setting up food standards panels to deal with the issue, staving off imminent court intervention. The case has been pending since.