The Hindu Business Line : A hasty ban

The Kerala High Court has quite rightly ruled that the State Government's order banning the two soft-drinks multinationals from manufacturing and selling their popular cola beverages is bad in law. Whatever the merits of the case against the cola giants on the question of whether these drinks contain unacceptable levels of pesticide or other harmful substances, clearly the State Government's ban suffered from procedural defects.

At the most fundamental level there is evidence of hasty drafting. The order spoke of a ban only on Coca-Cola and Pepsi cola. This would suggest that the other equally popular carbonated beverages manufactured by the two companies are free from any injurious substance and hence do not pose a threat to public health. That can hardly be the State's case. Further, the Government had said that its ban order was based on a letter received from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare at the Centre. But that letter merely referred to the findings of the Centre for Science and Environment, a non-governmental organisation, that samples of certain brands of beverages manufactured by the two companies contained pesticide residue and some of them far in excess of the limits set by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) as safe. The question, then, is whether the mere reference by the Health Ministry to the findings of a voluntary organisation should be taken as endorsement by it of these findings, or the validity of that body's conclusions. Second, are executive actions on what constitutes adulteration of foodstuffs or better still, an apprehension of a threat to public health, to be based solely on findings of voluntary organisations however reputable they may be?

The division of executive responsibility between the Centre and the States in matters of adulteration of food articles, as envisaged in the law, is based on sound logic. An adulterant in food is harmful no matter in which part of the country it is consumed. So the judgment on the question is rightly in the hands of the Centre. But where there is a public health emergency and the State may suspect the quality of some food article of mass consumption then, as part of an emergency response, the State may impose curbs on the manufacture and sale of such foodstuff no matter that the Centre itself has not so deemed it till then. It is precisely for this reason that there is a stipulation in the anti-food adulteration law that the State must specify the time period for which a ban, if imposed, would apply.

The States are may have a legitimate reason to feel unhappy with the assessment made by the Centre in a particular case or the speed with which it acts in specific cases. The Centre's reluctance to notify the standards already finalised by the standard-setting authority is perhaps a testament to it. But assuming Executive powers beyond what the Legislature intended may not be the best way of going about remedying the situation.

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