New Delhi, April 7 (IANS). The Delhi High Court on Tuesday ruled that the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has no jurisdiction to regulate animal or cattle feed. The court said that such powers are beyond the scope of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
A division bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyay and Justice Tejas Karia allowed a petition filed by Godrej Agrovet Ltd and quashed Note (c) attached to Regulation 2.5.2 of the Food Safety and Standards (Food Product Standards and Food Additives) Regulations.
The Delhi High Court ruled that the impugned provision, which prohibited feeding meat and bone meal to milk-yielding animals and mandated adherence to BIS standards for commercial feed, was ‘outside the jurisdiction’ of the original law.
“Any rules made by the Food Authority to regulate cattle feed or animal feed would be beyond the scope of the 2006 Act,” the bench led by Chief Justice Upadhyay said, adding that the original law strictly limits the jurisdiction of the FSSAI to food meant for human consumption only.
The bench remarked, “The whole scheme of the Act is such that its provisions can be used only to regulate food for human consumption and not to regulate fodder for the use of cattle or livestock.”
The Delhi High Court further held that the scope of the terms ‘food safety,’ ‘primary food,’ and ‘unsafe food’ under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 cannot be expanded to include cattle feed or animal feed.
The judgment said, “In view of the definition clause not specifically including any substance as food for the consumption of animals, cattle feed or animal feed, in our considered opinion, all functions of the Food Authority… relate to food for human consumption and shall not include animal or cattle feed.”
Applying established principles of delegated law, the bench came to the conclusion that FSSAI had exceeded its rule-making powers.
“We have no hesitation in concluding that the impugned regulations are beyond the scope of the 2006 Act and, therefore, they are beyond the jurisdiction of the Act itself,” the bench ruled.
The bench also quashed the directions issued by FSSAI in 2019, 2020 and 2021 that made BIS certification mandatory for commercial cattle feed; The bench clarified that such standards are voluntary unless they are specifically notified by the Central Government. The Delhi High Court said, “It is the duty of the Central Government to make any BIS standard mandatory… and in the absence of any such direction… it was not within the power of the Food Authority to make the condition of BIS standard mandatory.”
The Court clarified, “It is not that… BIS standards cannot be made mandatory for commercial fodder, but, for that purpose, appropriate procedure has to be followed under the relevant law.”
–IANS
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