The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has taken a decision to wait and watch after the Bombay high court’s judgement lifts an FSSAI order to ban Maggi noodles throughout the country. The food safety authority also called the new order as ‘neutral’ and is not against any findings of the authority, while waiting for six weeks until the new test results.
An official from FSSAI said “We have adopted a wait and watch policy for this matter, as any part of the order doesn’t go against the FSSAI order, but a mere gap for retesting is given. The order of Bombay high court is neutral without supporting any side of argument. In fact, the lifting of order is only for six weeks. We will wait until the final result of retesting come out.”
The Bombay High Court on August 13, cancelled the FSSAI’s order dated on June 5, to ban the manufacture and distribution of Maggi Noodles in the country, after observing the absence of show cause notice and finding the tests were carried out in laboratories lacking accreditation of National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL).
The conditional judgement had asked Nestle to retest all the product varieties, which came after the petition filed by Nestle India challenging the FSSAI order. While the company has announced that they are in a move to get Maggi Noodles back on the shelves as soon as possible. Nestle India have six weeks’ time to retest the nine varieties of Maggi Noodles in NABL accredited laboratories, as per the court rules. The laboratories in which FSSAI tested Maggi were inconsistent and unreliable, according to Nestle India, raises doubt on the results due to unaccredited status.