Maharashtra to appeal in Supreme Court against lifting of Maggi ban

The Nestle India ad campaign has been launched even as the Centre awaits test reports from the Central Food Technological Research Institute

Nestle India is not out of the soup as yet. The Maharashtra government on Tuesday finalised its decision to appeal in the Supreme Court against lifting the ban on Maggi. Also, a day after Nestle India unleashed a major propaganda blitzkrieg with advertisements screaming “Your Maggi is safe, has always been”, consumer activists yet again questioned the “safety” of Maggi noodles. They have demanded further tests on the instant noodles.

The Maharashtra government also intends to challenge Nestle’s claim that since the state laboratories were not NABL-accredited (National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories) their analysis cannot be replied upon. Tests by state laboratories concluded that the lead content in Maggi was more than the permissible limit of 2.5 parts per million (ppm).

The Nestle India ad campaign has been launched even as the Centre awaits test reports from the Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) at Mysore. Sealed samples were sent to the laboratory after the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission asked the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) to do so. “The FSSAI may approach the court once the tests reach us,” a Union health ministry official said.

It may be recalled that the hugely popular Maggi noodles were found to have seven times the allowable lead level. Experts had stated that excessive lead could have an adverse impact on the human body.

Concerned about public health and whether Maggi noodles were safe to eat, food and drugs administration (FDA) minister Girish Bapat said the Maharashtra government has decided to appeal against the high court order to lift the ban on this Nestle India product. The Bombay high court on August 13 had decided to lift the ban on Maggi.

Speaking to this newspaper, noted consumer activist and former member of FSSAI Bejon Misra attacked Nestle’s claim that Maggi noodles were “safe to eat”. Mr Misra lashed out, saying that Nestle’s claims were “preposterous” and that “it has no business to claim the product was safe”. “The FSSAI should be taking the call, and not Nestle India,” he said.

About Nestle’s ad campaign claiming that around 3,500 samples of noodles were “put to rigorous tests” in India and in countries like Australia, UK, Canada, the US and Singapore, activists expressed concerns over the “safety and efficacy of the tests”. Mr Misra said: “How can the manufacturers claim that their product is safe The consumers need to know the details of the Nestle factories and laboratories from where the samples were taken and tested.” He pointed out that it was Nestle India which has been claiming that Maggi noodles were safe to eat, not FSSAI.

“India is the only country where a company gets away by claiming on its own that their product is safe,” he added.

The activists have also questioned Nestle India’s “sudden and mysterious moves” to destroy stocks of noodles immediately after the FSSAI banned the product.

Nestle had burnt nearly 20,000 tonnes of Maggi after the ban was imposed in June this year. “If their product was safe why did they destroy the packets What was the hurry,” Mr Misra asked, and argued that Nestle “should have quarantined the product and then moved the court with test reports of the products”.

The Bombay high court recently lifted ban on Maggi. Nestle India had said all samples of Maggi had cleared tests, as mandated by the Bombay high court. The Maharashtra minister maintained that though the government would not comment on the court order, the “results of the samples being tested were not within permissible limits”.

Mr Harshdeep Kamble, FDA commissioner, also maintained that they were in the process of filing an appeal before the Supreme Court against lifting the ban.