With the row over Maggi noodles escalating, the Food Safety and Drug Administration of the U.P. government has filed a case against the manufacturing company, Nestle India Ltd., and five others, including the Barabanki store from where samples with excess lead were seized. The case was filed in the court of the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM), Barabanki, under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, on Saturday.
The move comes after tests on the samples of two-minute Maggi noodles of the March 2014 batch found the presence of lead in excess of the permissible limit. Monosodium glutamate too was more.
The case against the Maggi noodles maker and others was filed in the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM), Barabanki, under relevant sections of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, on Saturday.
Notices were issued by the court to the parties concerned for appearance on July 1. The District Food Safety Officer of Barabanki was authorised by the FSDA authorities in Lucknow to file a complaint in the ACJM court.
The move comes after tests conducted on the samples of two-minute Maggi noodles of the March 2014 batch found the presence of lead in excess of the permissible limit of 0.01parts per million. The Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) found in the samples was also found to be more. The findings of the FSDA, Uttar Pradesh, were upheld by the Central Food Laboratory in Kolkata. Subsequently, the licence of the Barabanki store, Easy Day, was suspended on April 24. The store reopened on May 1 following an appeal by the owner.
When contacted, the Additional Commissioner, FSDA, Ram Araj Maurya, confirmed that a case in the Maggi issue was filed in the ACJM court in Barabanki on Saturday. “The case has been filed against the manufacturing company and others,” Mr. Maurya told The Hindu .
In a related development, a complaint was filed in the court of the CJM, Barabanki on Saturday against cine stars Amitabh Bachchan, Madhuri Dixit and Preity Zinta for endorsing the product. The complaint case was filed by a lawyer, Santosh Kumar Singh. Mr. Singh, a former Barabanki district president of the BJP, has taken the plea that by endorsing Maggi noodles the film stars were misleading the people as laboratory tests have shown that it is harmful for health.
