NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Wednesday set a three-month deadline for the Centre to implement food safety norms that make it mandatory to display key information about packaged food items on containers. It said the Centre must decide amendments to Food Safety and Standards (Labelling and Display) Regulations, 2020, within the period.
“You all have grandchildren? Let the order on the petition come. You will know what Kurkure and Maggi are and how their wrappers should be. The packets have no information,” a bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan said.
The Centre said as per the affidavit filed by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, it received 14,000 comments on the new rules and has decided to amend the regulations. The court thereafter disposed of the PIL after setting a three-month deadline for the Centre. The PIL had sought directions to the Centre and states to make ‘front of package warning label’ mandatory.
FSSAI had in 2014 approved a proposal to display nutritional information, including total sugar, salt and saturated fat in bold letters and prominent font size on labels of packaged food items.