Madras High Court directs FSSAI to issue supplementary notice to AR Dairy Food over ‘Tirupati laddu’ row

Madurai (Tamil Nadu) [India], October 4 (ANI): The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has directed the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) to issue supplementary notice and grant time to AR Dairy Food to respond to it in the case relating to the supply of ghee used for making Tirupati laddus.

The petition filed by G. Kannan on behalf of AR Dairy Food was heard on Thursday by Justice N. Sathish Kumar. The company had challenged the show-cause notice issued to them regarding the supply of ghee.

AR Dairy Food started supplying ghee on June 4 and received approval from TTD’s in-house testing laboratory for four consignments in June. However, in July, four more consignments were supplied but rejected without reason.

The company was asked to explain why their contract should not be cancelled and why they should not be blacklisted. AR Dairy Food responded to the notice, and the case is currently pending.

The company responded to the notices and the matter was pending. TTD had relied upon the findings of lab reports of samples by Gujarat based NDDB-Calf which was not a food safety officer prescribed under the FSSA Act, 2006, he said.

On September 20, FSSAI issued a show cause notice seeking an explanation from the company as to why the Central licence should not be suspended for contravention under Food Safety and Standards (Food Products Standards and Food Additives) Regulation, 2011.

FSSAI does not follow the procedure of FSSA Act. Samples were taken from the Dindigul unit only after the notice was issued. A reply was filed on September 22 denying the allegations. Later on September 27 again, a notification was issued to NDDB-Calf, he said, challenging the notice.