Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has stopped the product approval (PA) process following the Supreme Court judgment upholding the Bombay High court verdict of the previous year quashing the FSSAI advisory on product approval.
In a note issued on August 26 which is uploaded on the FSSAI website, Dr Sandhya Kabra, Director for Product Approval, said, “It is no longer possible for FSSAI to continue with the process of product approvals which was facilitated through the advisory dated May11, 2013 in view of the order dated August 19, 2015 of the Supreme Court whereby the judgement and order dated August 1, 2014 of Bombay High Court has gained finality and the said advisory has ceased to remain operative.” She has further said that every endeavor will be made to expedite the regulations governing section 22 products.
Earlier, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has demanded that all advisories issued by the FSSAI since 2013 should be withdrawn to respect the recent Supreme Court order in this regard. The CAIT has made this demand in a letter written to Union Public Health Minister J P Nadda.
CAIT National President B C Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said in a statement four days back, it has been observed that since a long time, FSSAI was conducting its working through issuing advisories from time to time not only to State FDA Departments but even to stakeholders. FSSAI has issued about 15 advisories since 2013 and they are in public domain. With the Supreme Court order all such advisories tend to be redundant and as such liable to be withdrawn, they claimed in the statement.
CAIT has urged the Health Minister to take immediate cognizance of the matter and take actions so that the food business operators may not be harassed by the administrative system. It has also suggested the minister to constitute a committee of senior officials and representatives of stakeholders to suggest amendments to the FSS Act. The present act is designed to promote packaged food business in the country and the MNCs and it is far from ground realities and that of Indian food habits, the statement said.