A month after its return to the Indian market, Nestle Maggi Noodles is again faced with a fresh controversy, with the food regulator seeking a ban on the product.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) approached the Supreme Court seeking a ban on Nestle's Maggi Noodles. Supreme Court has sought a response from Nestle India on appeal by FSSAI. Nestle has been asked to file a response by 5 January and a hearing on the case would be held on 13 January, reports The Times of India.
The Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, who appeared for the FSSAI, stated the hurdles being faced by the regulator due to the Bombay High Court order. The Supreme Court judges agreed to scrutinize FSSAI's argument on 13 January, The Indian Express.
In its petition, FSSAI has raised doubts on the authenticity of the samples that were provided to the government accredited labs for re-test. The food regulator stated that the Bombay High Court should have picked random samples from the market instead of asking Nestle to provide the samples.
FSSAI claims that by seeking the samples from Nestle the sanctity of the re-testing procedure was lost.
The petition further claimed that the Bombay High Court allowed for substantial changes in its order, when Nestle filed for correction of the original order on grounds of certain typographical errors, The Indian Express reported.
The FSSAI officials who filed the petition also noted that releasing Maggi back into the market without gaining a fresh permission from the authorities also means a breach of a particular provision in the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, reports The Indian Express.
In August this year, the Bombay High Court had overlooked the FSSAI and Mahashtra state food regulator orders, which had banned nine variants of Maggi Noodles in India. The court had then ordered for fresh tests to be conducted on Maggi Noodles.
The court had allowed Nestle to conduct fresh testing of five samples of each variant of the noodles at three independent laboratories in Punjab, Hyderabad and Jaipur. These labs were accredited with National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL).
It had stated clearly that the samples for testing would be taken out of the 750 samples preserved by the company following the ban. The court had said that Nestle India will be allowed to resume manufacture of Maggi noodles only if the lead content was found below permissible limits by the three labs.
