 The facets of understanding food safety and standards act on safety is always an intruding subject. But if you have someone like A.R. Sirikanth with an executive director, legally, in R.P.S. Deepguinka Group, retail and FMCD, you can understand who are the practical nuances and understanding of the subject. And who is a known speaker. In fact, he is a dear friend of mine. And in one of the posters when I saw that Mr. Sirikanth has his college in this particular aspect, I requested that despite the fact that I'm so close, I was never knowing this body. So he said that he is more like a cocoon of a butterfly. Now you can understand how you can move forward with those aspects and you can see the better colors and better understanding regarding the food safety including the standards. As we always speak, that being a weekend, we always make a request to the speaker that the topic should be short, precise and needless to add, Sirikanth has this excellence and that's why he has reached, often it has been promoted to the designation of executive director which speaks volume that he execute things in the right way and the right perspective. Over to you Sirikanth. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. First of all, I congratulate the services you are doing especially to the law of eternity and we all learn from looking at your YouTube channel and your sessions. So coming to the today's topic, Food Safety and Standards Act. I know that none of the several law school curriculums are any university curriculums. We don't have food safety as a subject. So once you pass out and you're working with the industry and you need to encounter many issues related to food safety. So why it is important to learn the food safety? If I slice it in terms of economy, the Indian processed food industry is 470 billion. If we have 3.7 or 4 trillion in the economy, it's almost 12 to 13% of our market size is the food safety and the law related to the food safety governs this bug industry. Of course, there are no practical avenues to learn this as it is not part of the curriculum. So what we learned over the last 20 years while working with the Food Safety Authority of India and this law has been enacted in the year 2006 but it is came into force in 2011. So I was fortunate to be part of this various companies which was drafted this act as well as rules and regulations. So prior to this, just to give a summary, this is the area how I present this. There's more introduction why we require law, why the laws are consolidated, what are the licenses requirement, what are the duties of Food Safety officer and more importantly, as a lawyer, we need to know how the sampling process and adjudication process will conduct. So food safety, so before I start this, we need to understand the terminology. And I knew recently I was reading a newspaper where it was mentioned that when a flight, I was carrying more than 200 passengers on board, was flying in some foreign space, suddenly it encountered some trouble in the engine. So that pilot desperately messaging the local ATC asking for the permission to ground. The ATC refused the permission because it is not safety for any flight to give permission to land. So he was requesting for 10 minutes, he said that my fuel is for another 20 minutes, otherwise we will collapse but the ATC is not giving. Then immediately he messaged, he radioed a message saying that I am invoking food, I am invoking food red. The moment he said that I am invoking food red, the ground for ATC has immediately given permission. So the reason why they are given permission is both have spoken the same language where in case of emergency, in case of need, they need to speak the particular terminology so that they can understand, otherwise it can be an alien force or some other force. So the point I was going to make is, unless we understand the subject and the terminology and the circumstances which led to the passing of this legislation and the practices of the industry, we could not able to do the justice. So with this background, I can say that this is food safety is not a new thing. Although the present law is codified and it was legislated in the year 2006, but law is existing more than 2200 years. The first source of these references come from Arta Sastra. Arta Sastra has the provisions related to punishment for adulteration of food. So there are various provisions for adulteration of food and the consequence and then the punishments. In fact, if you go back to the Mughal era of 1000 years or 1200 years ago, there were certain labs for the establish to test the food safety, the quality of the food and the safety of the food and the procurement that certain rules was set up in the period of the Mughals and they even appointed a separate department for the food. So this law has been there since last 2000 years. It has evolved and came into a current shape. And again, if you come to the modern India, then we can say that before independence, each state has a separate law. Suppose if you talk about the Punjab, Punjab as a poor food act. If you go east, you have Assam Food Act 1919. If you go to the presidency towns, be it Calcutta, be it Madras and be it Mumbai, they have separate food and adulteration acts. In fact, every state, almost every state, even Orissa has gone on act. United provinces has a separate act. So these all separate acts are because as we know that food is a part, execution is at state level, every state has their own law. Whereas after independence, the first legal framework has started from the Constitution. Specific provision in the Constitution we can see in the Directive Principles of the State Policy where it states that it is the responsibility of the state. It is the responsibility of the state to ensure quality of food. So thereafter, there was no specific reference to the fundamental rights. But in case of a Center for Public Interest Litigation versus Union of India, this is the case of famous pesticides in aerated beverages. Like you have the Cool Rings, what we call in normal generic name Cool Rings. There was a pesticide residue. There was a big furrow some 25 years ago. So that case was filed against the industry by the Center for Public Interest Litigation. During the judgment, the Supreme Court has observed rather it was said that right to life, right to life encompass the right to have a quality life and right to have a quality food. The safe and quality food encompass the fundamental right. So this was the judgment of the Supreme Court. So it has further strengthened the legal provision that a right to safety and right to quality food is the fundamental right. So after this, after independence, after constitutional support, then Center has legislated a common law for all states and entire country, including the union territories. So the state first common law was came in the year 1954, of course, implementation from 1955. The first Center lagged was prevention of food adulteration and came in 1954. And it was there till 2011. So during this more than 55-60 years, this law was governing. Why this law need to change or rather repeal a new law need to bring into force, we'll discuss them then. But one thing I'd like to mention that we all know that under criminal jurisprudence, unless you have a mensria, no criminal act will be casted against the person who is committed. But in case of Food Safety Act, there is no requirement of mensria. If it is some act that has been happened, whether it's act of adulteration or it's act of unsafe food, the person whoever sells a person, whoever manufactures or packs, he will be responsible. irrespective of whether he has a mensria or not. We all, as I said, we all know that this main ingredients for any offense is a mensria, but this is an exemption to this. There was a famous case law somewhere that challenged this provision. In the matter of Anthropoleage, Grain and Seed Association, they have challenged this. They say that we are a honest trader and we have no intention to cheat the either customers or the government. And they have filed a petition challenging the infringement of their fundamental rights, Article 14 and Article 19. So Supreme Court has, after a lengthy trial, has stated that it is because this law is a welfare act, it requires to have the right, the customers will have a right to have a quality and safe food. Accordingly, the liability has to be fixed irrespective of whether you have a guilty of mind or not. So mensria is not applicable in the case of Food Safety Act. And they still, the same principle exists even in the new law also. This is the one fundamental difference between the other laws and the Food Safety Act. So after this Food Prevention and Food Education Act, there are many issues. Because during last 50 years, 50 years from last 1952 to 2000, there are many changes has been technological advancements, improvements in food, new category of food has come earlier, food means only immediate consumption. But we have nutraceuticals, we have other vitamin-related foods and many other categories of foods came due to the technological invention. Accordingly, the old act that is prevention of food adulteration act does not able to cater the entire requirements. Whereas the other technological development like increasing the lab sizes, increase the quality of analysis. All these areas made a requirement rather necessity for bringing in new act which need to address all categories of the questions related to the food safety. So the current act which is Food Safety and Standards Act which was came into existence from 2011 and this repealed all the old act. So earlier, one more thing there was no central authority. Each state execution is at state government. So each state has some states, the musical corporation was the responsible for execution. In this case, some public health department, in some state there is a health department. So there was no uniform execution. So that if you cross 50 kilometers or 100 kilometers, there is a different set of rules, a different set of practices. So considering this, there was a central act brought into the force and this act subsumed all existing acts. So earlier you have these many acts. You have food products order for foods, you have vegetable order, products order for vegetables, you have oil, for milk we have different things, edible packaging oil. So everything subsumed and merged into one single act. That's the Food Safety Act. Under Food Safety Act, there are various regulations they offer. See every time it is difficult to amend the act and bring in some amendments to the act. So it has passed through the entire legislative process up to parliament. So in order to expedite or ease in the process of ease of doing business. So some power has been given to the authorities where they can regulate and they can issue the regulations in accordance with the main act. So there are various regulations has been framed. Most importantly, this is Food Safety Licensing and Registration Act and package labeling and packaging act. These are the main acts which governs across the board. We have other acts like alcoholic beverage regulations for one industries, organic food regulations for another industries and audit regulations for certain kind of industries is required to be audited. And advertisements, those who advertise their products on various mediums, so they need to comply certain regulations. So each category they define, they're rather they diversified the regulations according to the industry and according to the category. In between we have a regulator came into the force. That's the Food Safety Standards Authority of India. It is based at Delhi and all states are part of that. And fortunately, I attended a couple of Food Safety Authority meetings as a special invitees for the regulator now has become a facilitator because we can see this earlier there was implementation execution was different. But now that regulator has taken the shape of the facilitator. So any regulation before they start that will be discussed at length and the public comments will be invited and thereafter the regulation will be passed. It's not like that today they passed and immediately they came into force. They'll use sufficient time to the industry to consume the existing inventory in case of any amendments to the labeling display regulations. They'll do considerable time so that the existing inventory is exhausted or in case of any new regulations or any new amendment. They'll use sufficient time for the industry to adjust accommodate and they can build the capacity during that process. So one aspect that and they'll continue evolving this and very user-friendly regulator what I can say this. So as I said, we have a one central act. You have a rules and you have a regulations. So various regulations addresses each and every specific category of the food or for the industry. So this is about the structure and background of the Food Safety Act why we require and what is the process. So what it does, see we have an act but what it does, it regulates your food, your consumption of the food. The food is there two types of food. One is the primary food, one is the secondary food. Primary food we immediately consume. A secondary food it is basically it's agriculture commodities which go into the processing and thereafter it's going to manufacturing then it go into the packing then it will come to your dining table. So this is a different process. One is you immediately you cook and you eat. So this is a process food. So entire this thing so this law covers the entire food irrespective of whether primary food or secondary food. So what areas it covers if I need to specify there are many definitions but if I need to specify in the four quadrants, first is it covers about your adulteration. It covers any substantiated food. It covers any misbranded food and more importantly it's about unsafe food. One thing we need to understand under the earlier act under the prevention of food adulteration act 1954 even a minor offense suppose you buy a packet of biscuit suppose date of manufacturing is not mentioned or date of expiry is not mentioned and the whole act is a simple six months imprisonment and another is unsafe. Unsafe it has to go to criminal track. We will see in subsequent slides. So first what it all covers? It all covers all adulteration food. What is adulteration? So adulteration is if you are using any product which is alternative I can say in a simple English I can say is the alternative. For example instead of if you take any pepper if someone is adding a dry papaya seed powder is an adulteration. If you take edible oil if someone is adding some mineral oil and making a product making your oil pack then it's an adulteration. I'm giving a simple example because this is the linty examples as given in the definition. Similarly in case of milk if you see milk is a common adulterant is the water. Similarly in case of ghee you have a vegetable oil it can be added as the alternative and coffee powder you will have a tamarind. So these are the adulterants. Another one is substandard. What is substandard? The definition, textbook definition is here but I'll give you an example of substandard. Suppose ghee, what is ghee? In South we call ghee in some other place but there's only a generic name for composition if I say ghee. ghee means what the acts is that it should have 99.5% milk solids. Similarly if I say about the paneer so what is paneer? Paneer means if you take any piece of product of paneer the minimum milk solids should be 50%. So what the balance 50% can be a water and moisture unless a product of paneer which has more than 50% of milk fat it does not qualify to be called as paneer. It can be some other product. It is not adulterant but it is a substandard. There is a difference in adulterant and substandard. Adulterant you have one other alternative coming substandard so it will be diluted or it will be less quality. Then misbranded. Misbranded if I say in simple example if I say something common misbranded is honey. So we say pure honey. Maybe it contains not exactly pure it is from the extracted from the we have but there's a alternative being added but it's not pure. Similarly if I take any other pure milk it's not pure if it is a processed if it is adulterated if it's not natural. So misbranded is basically a misleading statement where the consumer be here. Or else I can say that this famous oil canola oil, olive oil came from Spain but in fact it is locally manufactured. So I am putting a misbranding this claim. And lastly is unsafe food. Unsafe food means where the product the whole product is injurious. The famous unsafe food now what we see in seasonal is your mangoes. What mangoes mangoes will be artificially ripened by carbide. So all most of the foods artificially ripened. So these are unsafe foods. Unsafe food is totally where there is a chance that it can cause injurious to health or it can cause a severe football illness or any other health hazard. So that's unsafe food. So the entire law governs these four areas. So all regulations has been made under these four quadrants only. So this is about your law and why you require it and what it cause. Then what generally how it thereafter what? So thereafter any food business operator or any food industry you take from the small Kirana shop to a large manufacturing food products industry they all need to take certain license. Again if you see the earlier act if the person doesn't have a license even for the small petty license small Kirana shop in your neighborhood to a large retailer to a large manufacturer everyone has to pass through the same yardstick and same process of getting the license and application. But under the new act they have been two bifurcations. One is person having a turnover of less than 12 lakhs per annum they doesn't require a license percent they only need to take a registration a pay 100 rupees and get a registration that doesn't require to undergo the entire process of quality check inspection and all. And another category of license the state license any vendor or any company or any shop whose turnover is between 12 lakhs to 20 crores they are required to take a state license and thirdly the central license all bifurcations operators whose income is more than 20 crores per annum are who operates in more than two states they need to take a central license so licensing part has also been eased considering the nature of the business and the size of the business and the exposure of the business so this is also one of the welcome gens rather earlier the only one set of license and earlier it used to take there is no time limit for getting the new license it may take one month, two month, three month there is no end limit but under the new act the 60 days time limit has put in case if your license is not granted within 60 days then it's deemed that your license has been granted and most importantly it doesn't need to run around the offices to make an application and all everything you can do online application this is the website of course and in fact they train most of the food business operator in the process of applying FSS are trained in the process of applying and FSS as given the training they train the trainer and they have trained more than two lakh trainers all across the country who will hand held this process of applications and all so this is the process is very simplified and now every vendor they have to file a returns of course retailers has granted exemption from filing the returns but all manufacturing processing food business operators they need to file returns yearly so this is about the license so first your requirement of the law why you are required and you have a license then after license then who will do because the large company there are thousands of people working then who will be responsible for in other words board will be responsible but the new provision in this law this is different from any other if you see any labor act your occupier is the responsible if you see any company that your directors are responsible but here in the case considering the practical scenario suppose a factory a company has ten factories and your directors sit somewhere either in India or abroad humanly not possible for him to monitor or ensure compliance under the act physically because he physically is not the provision has been given and this act is the company can appoint a nominee who is the base dot of the particular unit and he can take responsibility of the entire compliances and the quality process in manufacturing the product this is the one of the provision which is different from all other laws so recently this food safety has also come up with various guidelines regarding the e-commerce now it is we all do shopping e-commerce your ten minutes app or twenty minutes app your quick commerce e-commerce now has become a quick commerce everything so they also need to regulate these business so they brought various provisions and to bring into these regulations e-commerce regulations where they are considered everything because the end object of this all this regulation is to provide a quality food and safe food and the welfare of the consumers to considering because if you are buying something online so you don't know when it is manufactured if you are visiting a store you have the chance to physically inspect the product and see the date of manufacture date of expiry but in case of e-commerce you doesn't know anything so you simply order this whether it is manufactured or expired or you don't know unless it's come but considering the legal difficulties regulator has regulated this FSA regulated these regulations where all e-commerce companies they need to have a mandatory disclosure on their networks there are various kind of e-commerce industry one is only a marketplace e-commerce he doesn't sell his own inventory there are certain e-commerce platform which they own the platform as well as they own the inventory so everyone fundamentally everyone is required to have their own food safety license so all e-commerce companies either they need to have a registration or license because all the entities have more than 12 lakhs per annum so they need to have a license and they need to display all the mandatory information what all mandatory information like your name of the product, date of manufacturing, date of expiry, MRP address of the consumer sales in case of vegetarian food you have one set of declaration like green circle in case of non-veg you need to have certain declaration that now it's a brown triangle so in case package food you need to have ingredients you need to have kind of additives there they all need to be displayed but before implementing they called for a meeting and some of the e-commerce operator raised the concern and this very valid concern that it is not possible that every time we need to upload the date of manufacture because the products keep on turnover is so high that every week there will be a change in the batch so it cannot be possible to upload all the information every time so they are divided the two set up for regulation one is your static information one is your dynamic information static information is already pre-printed information like who is the manufacturer the address license number is all static information what is the dynamic information is your data packing and data of experience your MRP so these are exempted this has to be there in the product but rest of the information has to be mentioned on the website if you see if you open any website and see any product you will find the license number of the food business operator and you will see all the declarations this has come from last 2 years and all e-commerce companies has updated this on their websites one most important factor what also brought into these rules is that when you buy a product the shelf life should be minimum 30% suppose your shelf life of the product from the data of manufacture to data of expiry if it is 1 year so minimum shelf life should be 30% 30% is almost 3 end of after 12 months 36 months 3.6 months so 3 end of months shelf life should be there or the product should have minimum 45 days the data of expiry D-45 so you should have a minimum 45 days time to consume it's not like that today you brought a day after tomorrow your product is going to expire it cannot be happened the minimum shelf life has been brought into these regulations so all these mandatory information that has to be provided on the website free of the cost and they also need to empanel their nodal officer like what you have e-commerce intermediary rules you should have a one agreeance officer similar kind of provisions also exist here you need to have one customer who can monitor the complaints if any complaints come from the customers on e-commerce company they need to have formal regulation suppose you have a physical store all these schedule for regulation there is one schedule for is part of licensing and labeling is part of licensing and registration where it says it has certain provisions of hygiene what kind of hygiene this any food business operator need to maintain or perform there are basically one is infrastructure related practices you are hygiene related practices so all these need to be complied by these e-commerce operators so it is also a boundary duty on the e-commerce platform that they need to ensure the product which they list on the platform has to comply with all regulations because there are certain amenities or exemptions from the intermediaries because some platform who operate there doesn't directly responsible for this but these regulations has brought certain duties on the platforms also they need to ensure and this food business operators has the right to inspect these food products which is being supplied in any entire supply chain any point of time or any point inside supply chain they can correct the sample and they can send the sample to the analysis these are the regulations which recently came in the 2020 for the e-commerce area so the point I would like to make that the 2011 the one set of rules in between there was a new area has been e-commerce area has been developed so they also address this so this regulator is very interactive and being working for the welfare of the customer welfare of the consumers throughout the year so what happened once you have taken the license once we applied the taken license then what happened you need to periodically renew your license earlier the license was for a period of 5 years they used to issue the expiry validity period up to 5 years but now it has been reduced to again 1 year so the good part is that you will get a reminder from the regulator every frequently this is your license going to expire you need to renew this as a law student as a lawyer we all know that Indian penal court but we do have an Indian food court Indian food court is in fact how this food court has been evolved or adopted or drafted we have a codex element is this international standards we are all food products as I said earlier what you call for the ghee ghee means as I said we should condemn minimum 99.5% of milk fat similarly each and every product it has been defined after a scientific analysis the product has been defined name any product product has been defined if any product has not been defined then that product is a proprietary product what is proprietary product if I say you take any hallelujah sweet shop you take a laddu laddu standards has not been prescribed under the act but it's proprietary food so considering this earlier many food business operators have different standards one laddu of one store is different from another place another place there are many many Indian traditional snacks that differ from each place to each place so in between 2004 2014 or 15 a new licensing system was brought into force that is called product approval if any product which is not part of this food court not part of the food products additives under the act you have the schedule schedule appendix under the appendix all the food products has been defined with their standards if any product is not falling in this category then you need to take a product approval from food safety authority of India so there was a company vital nutraceuticals they have challenged this before the Bombay high court and from there the matter the supreme court has in the year 2016 I mean this regulation saying that product approval process is not enabling provision in the food safety act so product approval proprietary food cannot not required to have a product approval process so thereafter again the FSSA brought a regulation regarding the proprietary foods you can have any kind of proprietary foods and the ingredients which we are using in the proprietary food that has to be standard I will take the same example of laddo suppose you are using the laddo you will have a basin, sugar, ghee if I take these are the primary ingredients then all these primary ingredients should be standard products the standard product can culminate into a proprietary food but these are the standard products again what are the standard products you have the standard product defined in the appendix B of the act this is about the law then we have a food safety officer he is the one of the main person in the entire ecosystem of the food safety act he is the person who is responsible for inspecting the premises he is the person who will conduct the samples and he is the person who verify your records and in fact he is the interface between the food business operator as well as the authority he has the power to enter into the premises like he is a public servant he can enter into the premises he can seize them for records if he found something is something is suspicious or something is found that some adulteration process is going or some other violation has been happening as part of the act then he has the power to seize and seal the premises he is the first to a designated officer designated officer reports to joint controller or commissioner depends upon the structure of the state so he is the person who investigate all the complaints which is received from the customers or which is received from other stakeholders and earlier in case of under the old act any violations either it is a seizure or cancellation of license are the penal prosecutions but under the new act he has the power to issue improvement notice rather he can give one opportunity to make good of the compliances which you are not complying he can do a surveillance sampling you can see during the festive season you will have lot many samples this is called surveillance samples one is surveillance sample one is a mandatory sampler regularity sample so food business operator he will collect samples and the analysis he is the executing authority under the act in simple words so what he does inspection before issuing license after issuing the license it is also prescribed that inspection cannot be happen at the drop of the hat because we see that sometimes some inspections happen routinely every month once twice in a month or twice in a month also but it is very clear regular guidelines has been issued that inspection may need to happen if it is a manufacture it is only once in a year if it is a retail retail food business operator once in two years so there has been certain conditions have been imposed on duties rather it is imposed on the food business operator also to investigate any complaint against the food business operator so as I said earlier the food food safety officer has the right to inspect the premises and he conduct the sampling can he all the cases related to the food safety revolve around three issues one is about the sampling method of sampling a process of sampling and delay in sampling and another area is right to the food business operator to appeal and third is the limitation he only that all entire litigation under the food safety revolve around majorly on these three issues so before sending the first how it starts the food safety officer enter into the premises and he has to express his intention that I am so and so I am coming for the inspection and I have doubt that there is certain products which are not complied with the provisions of the act of regulations of the act so I need to send this analysis so the entire sampling process has been stepped under the act so he should call some punch witness and he has to collect the sample and seal the sample in presence of the punch witness in case of non-compliance of this independent witness there is no prosecution against the food business operator prosecution does not stand on this this is the case of Supreme Court in Ram Lavia is the corporation of Delhi Supreme Court said that this in this particular case there is no witness come forward to sign the witness punch number statement so in fact the food inspector officer has expressed his inability to correct the independent witness even matter went up to the Supreme Court the Supreme Court considered that of course the law is very stringent mandatory that the independent witness should be there so he has not been there so nominal punishment of 1000 rupees was given if you remember in that old act there is no provision for punishment it is only imprisonment but Supreme Court has given this exemption for this in this particular case the point I would like to make this in case in the old act also in the current act also any inspection has to be done in the presence of an independent witness we see many cases the food inspector come along with that is pure and if you he will sign the punch witness so most of the cases will not stand before the criminal trial just before the session court because of this reason itself for the how the sampling has to be done sampling he cannot come and as it is can cannot take this so whenever he is taking the sampling he has to collect the sample the sample should homogeneously represent the entire population suppose he is taking example of a milk whatever the milk is collecting he has to strip the milk and he has to collect from the middle of the vessel it cannot take from the top or it cannot take from the bottom so once he collected the sample then he need to pour that into a container it can be a glass it can be a plastic but the container has to be cleaned and it has to be sterilized and it has to be cleaned with a dry cloth the presence of the food business operator as well as the punch thereafter he has to seal that condition seal that container and in case of it is a package food which is already packed then he need not to open it he can collect the package product as it is and he can see it he can send it in case he is sampling appreciable products what is appreciable products which have a short shelf life type of they are to be record etc short shelf life he has to collect this in in a chilled containers so once he collected he cannot keep in ambient temperature he has to keep under refrigeration where the product all frozen products need to stored in 5 to minus 5 degrees temperature so he need this sample once he collected this because he cannot keep the sample forever for his office the next immediate day he has to send it to public analysis for analysis so they'll also prescribe the standards so how much milk he can take 20 gram 20 ml of the milk 2 liters of the milk how much he can take no very clearly mentioned these are the standards these are the every product he has to take the specific standards most of this is again before the trial court he'll take he'll take 1 kg of the product and he will make 4 packets of 250 grams or he'll take 100 ml 100 ml 100 ml of each product in case of milk he'll take 100 ml 100 ml so the cases will not withstand only because the quantities the specified quantity what mentioned under regulations has not been collected so these are the list of the product which acts as that that has to be the specified quantities in case any product is not figured in this list of 24 then the product should have a specified quantity of 500 grams so he need to take 500 grams of each product or 150 grams whatever the net quantity mentioned here and he need to take and he need to make the 4 samples why 4 samples I'll tell you he need to make the 4 sample and he need to pack and seal and he need to send it to the public analysis as well as the superior so this will be a typical this is the practical case of the photograph one sample so he has to seal this so he need to measure the core the seal number and minimum quantities he has to specify and he has to put a lid on it and he need to properly seal and he need to collect the 4 samples so he need to collect the 4 samples one he will send to the public analysis public analysis is food analysis whether he can say anyone no there are earlier there are only 5 CFL central food laboratories were there but now under the new act there are various private entities also been listed under NABL laboratory and sampling regulations certain as labs has been identified for conducting the analysis where he doesn't have a private lab they need to send it to the government lab so out of the 4 samples one goes to the food analysis and the one food safety officer will keep one and rest of the 2 it will be sent to the designated officer designated officer who will be the authority under the act who can initiate the prosecution he is the superior food safety officer so what happens when the sample was sent to analysis the public analysis conducts is see the entire sampling process can be picturized in this way first sample is collected then it was sent to food's analysis if analysis conduct the analysis and he send this analysis report and the product is in order then there is no further action suppose if the product fails in the analysis why it fails if it is misbranded if it is adulterated if it is unsafe then if it product will be failed in that case analysis report will be sent to the designated officer what designated officer he will see what is the cause of offense and what is the violation he will see then he will give a right to food business operator to go for second analysis this is the main right of the food business operator again 50 to 60% of all the cases in last 50 years has been washed as because of this fundamental reason where this is the fundamental right of the food business operator to challenge the report of the public analysis the famous case municipal cooperation of Delhi versus Giza Ram in the year 1966 this Supreme Court 23rd November 1966 if you google it you will get MCD versus Giza Ram that law still as on today still exist any case where the second analysis the report was right to appeal an opportunity was not given to the food business operator then the case itself did not stand so what happens one now coming back to this one the food business from the DO issue opportunity to the food business operator to make an appeal it's an option with the food business operator either to go for an appeal or not it does it irrespective of the fact the matter will be filed before if it is exercise is right for appeal then product will go for a second analysis the DO will wait for the second analysis report if the second analysis report comes against the first analysis then if it is a government left the second analysis will prevail the no cause of action in case the both reports found that the product filled the standards of as mentioned in that then case will be filed if I put the entire time frame entire time frame if I put that these are the main case for what any lawyer was practicing they need to keep in mind these are the technical defenses which available to food business operator in case the product fails and cause case was filed before the session court and magistrate court Food Safety Officer has to collect the sample and immediately he need to send the sample to public analysis immediate next day suppose today Friday he collected or Saturday he collected the sample Sunday being the holiday or Monday happen to be holiday or working day he sends on Monday whether it's complains with that no he has to send immediately upon receipt of this sample the food analysis has to complete the entire sampling process within 14 days and he need to send the report to the DO within 14 days in case he doesn't he unable to conclude the analysis he need to give a written request to the designated officer they will be stating the reason for the delay then only it can be extended otherwise it is a 14 days there are many cases in fact in last couple of years a lot of cases from Madras I could only on this case only of this of this promotion suppose in public analysis this report comes and if it is found that product is unsafe if the product is unsafe then the prosecution will lie before the session court or magistrate court so the DO has to send his recommendation within 14 days and in the commissioner of food safety officer commissioner food safety every state has a commissioner food safety he has to give the power to file the prosecution he has to give permission to file prosecution before the court so if the entire process should complete before one year from the cause of action what is the cause of action the date of sample from the date of sample launching of prosecution should happen within one year in case beyond this no case lies section 77 of that very clearly says that no case will lie if there is a strict provision for limitation however the commissioner has a power to extend the delay based on various reasons but whatever the reasons he has to clearly the commissioner has to write himself rather he has to under his authority very clearly depicting the reasons for the delay is the case of Suresh Rajput where the commissioner has extended the filing of the case beyond the time limit but he simply signed a cyclostide copy a year by extend the time by 16 more months he has simply signed this there was no reason were given reason was given why the prosecution was launched within the time frame as mentioned by the act so within the supreme court has stuck down this case allowed this criminal position and why the lower court proceedings for time frame the limitation is very strictly ensuring this would get the only reason being the food products has a short shelf life they cannot be further assessed and even the food business operator right to appeal has been curtailed then it's a violation of his fundamental right so these has been upheld by the various courts right from high court to supreme court in various cases so considering this both the food safety food authorities has to ensure the time limits correspondingly the food business operator has to keep and watch all this time frame in order to save his defense so there are the two types one is the unsafe food it goes to the criminal court and in case of small minor violations like misbranding, substandard then the cases will be filed before the ADM, additional district magistrate under section 68 says that every district shall have adjudication officer the adjudication officer will be the rank of additional district magistrate and he exercise the powers of a quasi judicial authority and he has the power to compound the cases depend upon the nature of the cases it's a penalty lies from 2 lakhs to 5 lakhs same the proceedings he has to give an opportunity to the food business operator to defend his case and he should see that in case of misbranding he need to see how much profit this food business operator has made out of this misbranding out of this adjudication and the proportionate penalty has to be lived considering his profit made from that violation and any penalty will be recovered under ROR so is there any appeal against the adjudication officer yes every state has the FSAD food safety appellate tribunal in case some state doesn't constitute a separate appellate tribunal they have notified certain district courts which are equivalent acting as a food safety appellate tribunal and certain states have the FSAD certain states are doing very good work disposing the case expeditiously and everything is online certain states have special courts which acting as a FSAD if you ask is there any safeguard for the retailers or is there safeguard for anything yes from retailer to a lot retailer if they are selling the products in as is various basis from as they purchase from the manufacture they have certain safeguards and every food business operator who sells the product they have to issue a form of guarantee not for the end consumer between the buyer to seller a B2B transaction kind of a thing where manufacturer, dealer will sell it so they need to give form of guarantee which certify that whatever the product they are supplying that confirm the quality that confirm the standards as prescribed under that however it may not possible but there are thousands of transactions happen every month and every time is it not possible for taking this kind of guarantee so law also provides certain exemption to this whatever the EA invoice nowadays everyone issue a GST invoice even who doesn't come under the GST they also issue invoice whatever the invoice whatever the receipt issue by the seller it will be deemed a form of guarantee it doesn't require if it is in the form EA what mentioned under that that is well and good if unable to do it then the receipt itself can act as a form of guarantee so there are certain duties casted on this food business operator they need to ensure the safety they need to see all persons who are working under this food business establishment they should not suffer from any contagious disease they should have a food handlet certificate they need to undergo certain medical examinations so and they also have the first in first order whatever the food business operator received first they need to sell that first in order to have a longer shelf life so there are certain as I said the food business operator instead of straight away filing in a prosecution launching a prosecution he has over to issue improvement notice this is one of the important thing nowadays major food business operators are the companies like in any other act any non-confirmation any non-compliances or any violation under the act all the directors are responsible or all KMPs every person is in charge of the affairs of the business are responsible however as said earlier you have the opportunity to file a nomination you can nominate one person for one state or one person for one store or one person for the entire company you can nominate but he will be the primary responsible he has to ensure that all the compliances as per the act so these are the penalties it starts from minimum to 1 lakh to 10 lakhs in case of death it is imprisonment as well as penalty so even if you operate a business without a license there is an imprisonment up to 6 months so the law once one hand it is festivities and safeguards in case of vinyl violation another hand if it is a repetitive violation if it is a serious previous injuries happened to the consumer or any other person then a stringent punishment up to 6 months imprisonment now do the shortage of time and state of it take you to this package if you see any product if you visit any store if you buy any product you just check this product this product will have all these declarations why this requires these are the mandatory regulations under labeling and display regulations earlier it was packaging and labeling regulations now it is labeling and display regulations so any product every prepacket product what is prepacket product suppose you go and buy in present someone is measuring and packing that is not a prepack commodity what is prepack commodity which packed in the absence of the consumer take any famous brand biscuit packet it is already packed before you are there so what is there in the packet it does not know unless you see the labeling regulations what does labeling regulations convey to you it conveys what is the name of the food how it is manufactured whether it is making any claim of say some cashew biscuit a cashew biscuit so what extent of cashew is there what are its ingredients and another thing is a nutritional panel if you consume 100 grams of this biscuit or this particular product how much energy you give how much energy you will get so as per national institute of nutrition a 60 kg average person required in India 2000 kilo calories so this is the recommended dietary preferences so this is the benchmark so all these products being compared to that so if you take what is your minimum RDA in terms of energy is 2 kilo calories what you require in a day 67 grams of fat and 22 grams of saturated fat so all this sugar and all so how much you will get from this particular product so the declaration will come it is mandatory to be declared on the product and you will see there is a tolerance there can be 10% variance from whatever declared on the label as actually physical composition so another important thing waste logo and non-waste logo earlier waste logo and non-waste logo appearance was color was different but appearance was safe so there was many complaints or suggestions from color blindness people so they can't able to identify so recently they have changed this non-waste logo to a triangle for the benefit of the people suffering from color blindness so in case you are adding any kind of flavoring substances whether it is artificial or natural you need to mention this and you need to mention the complete details of who is the owner of the brand who is the manufacturer in case the consumer has any complaint so where he doesn't need to over all states or he doesn't need to search in the Google to get the details of the consumer is mandatory to declare the email and mobile number email or the phone number of the concerned grievance officer or the complaint a regressor officer so in case a product is important in India the country of origin has to be mentioned mandatory so data of expiry we need to mention if you see any product if it is a shelf life of 3 months you need to mention the date of expiry also if it is the product shelf life is more than 3 months the loss is that it is sufficient if you mention the month and year of expiry so nobody does new labeling regulations has come from the restaurant suppose these we talked earlier about the packaging regulations but if you happen to visit any restaurant and all so he doesn't know that when is manufactured what is the ingredients and all so recently they started with the menu labeling so all restaurants which operates more than 10 units and we have a central license the mandatory declare the nutritional ingredients nutritional panels as well as the ingredients so these are the list of the entities which come under the ambit of these regulations this has to be displayed in case of restaurants in case of a 5 star hotels on the food suppose your buffet has been served so it's mandatory that if it's a 5 star hotel having a central license they need to mandatory display all this whether you have allergy information or calorific information what is your serving size so if it is a suppose you take the given the example this is example from food safety authority only if it is a paneer butter masala then how much calories what is the price everything you need to declare and if you have any allergy you also need to mention that this is the mandatory information and most importantly the size and also please describe the size of the letter how much the letter should be there it is a big package and you have only one mm size you cannot see so your height of the letter your size of the letter should be corresponding to the area of your package so that also has been displayed of course there is an interface between food safety and legal metrology in this aspect both have the same there are certain exemptions small packets which is less than 100 square centimetre in area area means entire area of the package and doesn't require to have the entire mandatory declaration there are certain industries which require to have a food safety audit from a third party there are certain under audit regulations there are certain entities which has been identified for the audit regulation they need to mandatory conduct once in a year these are the industries if it is a dairy industry a fish industry, meat industry, egg industry or a catering industry they need to conduct audit once in a year through a third party so this is all about food safety and the primary concern of this entire act and legislation is to ensure the customers in safety first we all are consumers then we are lawyers and we are any other profession but before that we are consumers first and in the safety of the consumers as it's a directive principle say that it's a duty of the state to provide safe and nutritious food to the citizens of the country as I said in the center for the interest of public litigation Supreme Court says that this is the inalienable fundamental right that the citizen or the consumer will have a right to safe and quality food so with this I thank you Vikasji for providing me this opportunity and if you have any specific questions I am here to answer this thank you Srikanth the way you explained it in a more subtle manner I was just reminded just like Prishnacharya Srikanth used to come and buy and perform the same way you performed it you can do away with the screen meanwhile Joseph Khan says whether fees items should be made as in terms of section 100 CRPC is it mandatory or directly kindly explained sorry sir he says whether fees items should be made as per section 100 of CRPC is it mandatory or directly so it's not mandatory it's only directly and then there is another question how to test a crushed groundnut oil for that matter any other oil groundnut oil the standards has been prescribed for testing it has to send for the analysis so oil it takes minimum 2 to 3 days for conducting completing the analysis so there is no like you have a milk test kit you can straight away test the milk solids what is the milk solids in that milk similarly in case of oil it has to go for analysis and there is a method operation method they will conduct the method then only can able to assess what is the propensity of the oil so there is no first source to test the oil that is the reason that you lose oil has been banned more than 20 years so entire oil has to be sold in only package conditions this is by can these tests be done in a private laboratory or there are some standard laboratories the two times one is the if it is a surveillance sample it has to be the food safety officer has the right to send it to the accredited lab it is a government or private but in case of a customer as a consumer you can also collect and you can also send the sample to the analysis you can send it to any NABL lab more than around 81 ATR 81 labs has been accredited so far you can send it to anyone it should be accredited by NABL and upload by food safety authority we take a step forward how will the seller come to know that or the manufacturer come to know that the product which the consumer is sending what will be forward for that for sealing and sending it to the laboratory how does it ensure that there is no tampering with it while sending it to the laboratory that is the reason you need to have this independent witness a mandatory so first of all thus for any sample being collected if it is a packed condition then law is very clear that it has to be sealed and send it but in case of loose commodity as a given example of a milk or anything if we need to collect from the open vessel then it has to be in the presence of independent witness it has to be collected homogeneously the many cases have these volumes behind me before the supreme court milk was not collected properly the court was not collected properly so there is a process that you need to steal the entire commodity then you take the homogenous product last question whether there is any nominee under this side why authorities register case against store manager company and nominee in case of a valid nomination the food authority is no other chance except to make in the party sometimes what happens is they will also make other parties especially in the directors in order to bring seriousness so they make the party but law is very clear if it is a nominee and nominee is valid the only thing what you need to see this the nominee is valid nominee in the movement I say that he should be in a capacity to take the decisions and control the activities he has the power to implement the food safety quality process in his store unless he doesn't for the sake of nomination upon someone who doesn't even have any authority he is the lowest person in the store it doesn't hold valid what is valid the person should be in a capacity who can take the action to ensure the compliance of that if that is there it is mandatory only the case will lie against the nominee yeah how to collect the oil sample please please so oil sample now it is as I said it is only packed condition there is no need to open it and need to collect this you collect the package pack look any take any brand oil or any unbranded oil it has to be in the form of a pack normally so pack it seal it before the independent witness and there is a process how you need to seal you need to take a container a container should be clean and dry there is a glass jar you need to wipe with a dry cloth you need to put the product and you need to seal with a twine and you need to send the sample to as a customer if you are selling this you send it directly to one lab and send it one to a divo who is the competent authority to release seized goods which were seized simultaneously with the collection of sample a designated officer designated officer he is the authority in case designated officer is not responding or is not doing then commissioner food safety last question any limit on number of items that fs open take as a sample for actually there is no limit under the law but as a practice you should take 2 or 3 but there are instances especially before festivals I have seen the case that they have taken 4000 rupees chocolates also whereas you need to take only 400 gram chocolate but yes there are cases they have taken more also but you need to show that regulation 2.3.1 it clearly says that you need to take the specified quantities so whatever the quantity mentioned there in 24 you can take he has to take thank you Srikant for sharing your knowledge the most fascinating part was the participants who were on the zoom and the youtube they were the total same maybe in the youtube they got up so it means those who who were on the zoom link they were totally locked up it seems that you had put the thumb on the feet so that they couldn't move and they were glued to watch your videos thank you thank you sir