Nestle India ltd argued before the Bombay High Court on Friday that the presence of lead beyond the permissible limit in a certain batch of its food produce was no justification to the blanket ban imposed on nine variants of its instant noodles from the Indian market for being “hazardous” to public health.
Terming the “blanket ban” imposed on nine variants of instant Maggi noodles as “unfair” and “illegal”, Nestle India’s lawyer Iqbal Chhagla argued before a HC division headed by Justice VM Kanade: “If a particular batch was substandard, it could have been banned but stopping the entire production was not justified”.
“For the sake of argument, we are accepting that there could be lead content beyond permissible limit in a certain batch of Maggie, but for this the decision to ban the entire product was not correct... "The decision to ban Maggi was without application of mind, arbitrary and without any evidence," Chhagla said, in substantiation of his argument.
The HC division bench was hearing a revision application filed by Nestle India seeking the quashing of the orders of Maharashtra's Commissioner of Food Safety and FSSAI, banning nine variants of its instant Maggi noodles from the Indian market for being "hazardous" to public health.
"We have tested our product in 2700 laboratories in India and also abroad and the tests have indicated that the lead content was less than the permissible limit of 0.5 per cent..The laboratories where FSSAI tested Maggi were not accredited by National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration laboratories (NABl). Some of the laboratories were not notified even under FSSAI Act and accreditation of some others had not been renewed," Chhagla said.
"Without receiving any complaint, the FSSAI has banned our product, due to which we lost goodwill, reputation and suffered huge losses running into crores of rupees," Chhagla said.