LUCKNOW: UP government has invoked Section 56 of the Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA), 2006, for a statewide crackdown on sale of contaminated food, entailing a “verification process” that requires eateries to prominently display the names and addresses of their proprietors and managers.
The order, issued nearly two months after Supreme Court put on hold a similar police notification applicable to Kanwar Yatra routes, will be enforced this time by joint teams of the state Food Safety and Drug Administration, police, and local administration.
Action for any discrepancy will be initiated under the aegis of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the statutory licensing institution that regulates and supervises food safety countrywide, officials said.
In its July 22 verdict on a batch of petitions challenging the Kanwar Yatra-linked notices by UP, Uttarakhand and MP, the court had ruled that police weren’t authorised to enforce any such order. “In furtherance to this, the competent authority may perhaps issue orders under the FSSA, 2006, and the Street Vendors Act, 2014. However, the legal powers vested on the competent authority (in this case, FSSAI) cannot be usurped by police without legal foundation,” the bench of Justice Hrishikesh Roy and Justice SVN Bhatti said.
The decision to revive the contentious move of having restaurant, dhaba and cloud kitchen operators display their names and addresses was taken at a meeting convened by CM Yogi Adityanath in Lucknow Tuesday to discuss reports of food contamination with human waste.
A senior official said Yogi wanted the verification process to be completed swiftly. “The entire procedure is already well laid out in the relevant Act. It only needs to be enforced effectively,” he said. The CM ordered necessary “amendments to rules” and steps to enforce accountability by identifying and listing all establishments serving food, including cloud kitchens.
Section 56 of the FSSA states, “Any person who, whether by himself or by any other person on his behalf, manufactures or processes any article of food for human consumption under unhygienic or unsanitary conditions, shall be liable to a penalty which may extend to Rs 1 lakh.” If food adulteration leads to injury or death, the law provides for a jail sentence of six months to life, and a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh.
The UP, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh govts had made it mandatory for food stalls and fruit vendors along the Kanwar Yatra routes to display the names of owners for transparency and to help pilgrims make “informed choices” about where to eat. The SC said the onus was on FSSAI to ensure pilgrims were served vegetarian food, conforming to their preferences and standards of hygiene.