Drop ‘fresh and pure’ tag, court tells Milma

The Kerala High Court on Monday orally directed Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (Milma) to inform the court by next week whether it would remove  the tag “fresh and pure ” from its packets.

 A Bench comprising Justice Siri Jagan and Justice K. Ramakrishnan warned Milma that if it did not remove the imprint, the court would make a declaration that Milma was defrauding consumers.

The court had earlier observed that unless Milma deleted the “fresh and pure” tag, it would issue an order prohibiting it from converting milk powder into milk and selling it as fresh milk.

The Bench made the observation when an appeal against a single judge’s verdict allowing Milma to hike the prices of milk came up for hearing.

The judges observed that Milma was committing a fraud on the people by making a declaration that its milk is fresh and pure when it actually produced milk by converting skimmed milk powder.

When counsel for Milma told the court  that the description “fresh and pure” on its milk pouches was part of mnemonic symbol owned by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), the court orally observed that then NDDB was abetting Milma to defraud milk consumers.

 In an affidavit, Milma pointed out that there was an agreement between Milma and NDDB on the use this symbol. It was a registered trade mark in the name of NDDB. And most of the milk federations and unions all over the country were using the symbol in their milk packets.

The affidavit said that unless skimmed milk powder was added, one would not be able to produce toned/double toned milk within the standard prescribed in Food Safety Standard regulations. NDDB was importing the skimmed milk powder.

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