Milk Adulteration a Punishable Offence

In order to tackle the menace of growing sale of adulterated and synthetic milk, the Supreme Court on Friday favoured stringent punishment of life imprisonment for milk adulteration. Currently, the offence is punishable by only up to six months in jail or fine.

A bench of Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justices R Banumathi and U U Lalit said that milk adulteration could adversely affect the growth of future generations as it was the staple diet of children and infants.

The bench asked the Centre and states to consider amending the present lenient law, and confirmed that Uttar Pradesh, Bengal, and Odisha had already amended the lawmaking adulteration punishable by up to life imprisonment. 

"It will be in order, if the Centre considers making suitable amendments in the penal provisions on a par with the provisions contained in the state amendments to the IPC. It is also desirable that the Centre revisits the Food Safety and Standards Act to revise the punishment for adulteration making it more deterrent in cases where the adulterant can have an adverse impact on health," it said.

The government has also been directed to spread awareness about the dangerous impact of milk adulteration and methods for detection of common adulterants in food. The SC has also asked the states to evolve a complaint mechanism for checking corruption and other unethical practices.

"Adulteration of milk and its products is a concern and stringent measures need to be taken to combat it," the bench said and referred to a 2011 report of Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) which said that over 68 percent of milk sold in the market was found to be adulterated.

Milk adulteration is quite prominent in developing states such as Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bengal, Mizoram, Jharkhand and Daman & Diu, where adulteration in milk was found up to 100 percent. In Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, 88 percent of milk samples were found adulterated.

The court passed the order on a bunch of petitions filed by people from different states seeking its direction to governments to provide stringent punishment for milk adulteration. Advocate Anurag Tomar, appearing for the petitioners, contended that milk contaminated with synthetic material was being sold in various states, posing a serious threat to the life and health of consumers.