Chapter: 4.2 Important provisions of the Food Safety and Standards

Important provisions of the Act

A] The Food Safety and Standards Act is an 'integrated food law,' designed to avoid the previously existing multiplicity of legislation. It replaces all previous laws relating to food.
B] It creates a specialized bureaucracy to administer its provisions and establishes the Food Safety and Standards Authority (FSSA) to regulate the sector and other allied committees. The FSSA would consist of a Chairperson and 22 members. The Chairperson would be either an eminent food scientist or a civil servant not below the rank of Secretary. Seven of the members would be ex-officio, not below the post of Joint Secretary, from various ministries. Five members would be appointed by rotation every three years from the states and Union Territories. The Authority would have two representatives each from the food industry and consumer organizations, three food technologists, and two members from a farmers' organization and one from retail organization.
C] FSSA will be aided by several scientific panels and a Central Advisory Committee to lay down standards for food safety. These standards will include specifications for ingredients, contaminants, pesticide residue, biological hazards, labels and others.
D] There is provision for compulsory registration or license for every food retailer, hawker, itinerant vendor and temporary stallholder under regulations made by the Act. Temporary stall holders are exempted from the license but need to get their businesses registered with the local municipality or Panchayat.
E] The Act applies to both large and small operators defining a food business as "any undertaking, whether for profit or not and whether public or private, carrying out any of the activities related to any stage of manufacture, processing, packaging, storage, transportation, distribution of food or import" of food.
F] The law will be enforced through State Commissioners of Food Safety and local level officials.
G] The Act empowers the FSSA and State Food Safety Authorities to monitor and regulate the food business operators. The Commissioner of Food Safety of each state appoints a Designated Officer (DO), not below the level of Sub- Divisional Officer, for a specific district whose duties include issuing or canceling licenses, prohibiting sale of food articles that violate specified standards, receiving report and samples of food articles from Food Safety Officers and getting them analyzed. The State Commissioner, on the recommendation of the Designated Officer, decides whether a case of violation would be referred to a court of ordinary jurisdiction or to a Special Court.
H] The penalties provided are mostly in the nature of fines and trial by special courts in case of serious offences. The Act provides for a graded penalty structure where the punishment depends on the severity of the violation. Offences such as manufacturing, selling, storing or importing sub-standard or misbranded food could incur a fine. Offences such as manufacturing, distributing, selling or importing unsafe food, which result in injury could incur a prison sentence. The sentence could extend to life imprisonment in case the violation causes death. Petty manufacturers who make their own food, hawkers, vendors or temporary stall holders could be fined up to Rs 25 thousand if they violate the specified standards.
I] The Act contains a provision under Section 69 (power to compound offences), which empowers Designated Officers to impose a fine of up to Rs 1 lakh on petty manufacturers, hawkers, retailers etc. if they have a "reasonable belief" that an offence has been committed.
I] In order to judge cases related to breach of specified regulations, the state government has the power to appoint an Adjudicating Officer, not below the rank of Additional District Magistrate. Any person not satisfied by the decision of an Adjudicating Officer has the right to appeal to the Food Safety Appellate Tribunal (or to the State Commissioner until the Tribunal is constituted). The Tribunal enjoys the same powers as a civil court and decides the penalty in case of non-compliance with the provisions of the Act.
K] Every distributor is required identify any food article to its manufacturer, and every seller to its distributor. Anyone in the sector should be able to initiate recall procedures if he finds that the food sold had violated specified standards.