Delhi HC Says People Cannot Have Adulterated Food; Stresses On Finding Solution

Since the beginning of 2024, rampant reports of food adulteration have been making headlines in India, and at least one such case is reported in New Delhi every month. Ahead of the festive season, food security authorities have been on alert and conducting random inspections across the country to ensure people's safety.

Despite knowing that authorities are taking food samples and checking them thoroughly, vendors refuse to keep quality control in check. While hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) on Tuesday (October 23, 2024), the Delhi High Court noted that people in the capital cannot be forced to consume contaminated food.

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Delhi HC Says People Cannot Have Adulterated Food

After reading about several instances where expired food products were reintroduced into the market after rebranding and repackaging with new expiry dates, a bench of Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela had to intervene. They suggested that selling expired food items is not a business.

The bench said, “People cannot be having adulterated food in Delhi. Give us suggestions on how this can be tackled.” Advocate Shwetasree submitted a report in which she suggested manufacturers must generate a QR code for every packaged food item. This will allow consumers to cross-verify expiry dates.

As amicus curiae, the report further added, “Food business operators be directed to mark all food products with a unique alphanumeric code or a QR code that is identifiable by an FSSAI representative by cross-reference to a centralised database, which will reveal the batch number and expiry date of a product immediately and on-site, to obviate testing and sampling to ascertain whether expiry dates and other information on the label has been tampered with.”

The QR code is expected to work quite similarly to what the Union Health Ministry uses for tracking pharma products. The court also questioned food safety authorities on how they were planning to amp up food sample collection. The bench also asked counsel for the alleged counterfeiters to make sure their clients were present during the next proceedings. The court had reportedly issued orders seeking responses from the Food Safety and Standard Authority of India, the Delhi Government, and the Delhi Police.