New Delhi, Sept. 30: India’s top consumer court today gave Nestle India a week to explain why it is opposing a new set of tests on its Maggi noodles sought by the Union government as part of its consumer complaint against the noodles maker.
The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, in a hearing on a class action suit filed by the Union department of consumer affairs, asked Nestle to explain by October 8 its opposition to new tests sought by the government through the consumer court.
The consumer affairs department has claimed that Nestle had sold noodles with levels of lead higher than the permissible limit and with labels that the product had no added monosodium glutamate, a taste enhancer. The suit seeks a compensation of Rs 639 crore from the company for compensation and punitive damages.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India had in June this year banned the sale of Maggi noodles after government laboratories had detected higherthanallowed lead levels in samples of the product, and because the packets were sold with the label: “No added MSG.”
The FSSAI decision as well as the government’s class action suit against Nestle has surprised sections of food safety and quality control analysts who believe that the FSSAI had imposed the ban without sufficient groundwork to justify the decision.
Bombay High Court, responding to a petition by Nestle challenging the ban, had rejected the results of the government laboratories because they did not have proper accreditation to conduct the tests and ordered fresh tests in three accredited laboratories.
The consumer affairs departments now wants 27 packets of the noodles that it had randomly sampled from retail shops to be tested at the Central Food Technology Research Institute or the Defence Food Research Laboratory, both in Mysore.
“We want these 27 samples to be tested for lead and monosodium glutamate under the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act,” Prabhsahay Kaur, a lawyer representing the consumer affairs department, told The Telegraph.
Under the Consumer Protection Act, a complainant can provide to the consumer court samples of the product against which the complaint has been filed and seek independent assessment.
A source associated with the class action suit said the government is seeking tests on the 27 samples because Nestle provided samples for the tests ordered by Bombay High Court. “The 27 samples we want tests on have been picked at random from the market,” the source, who requested anonymity, said.
A Nestle spokesperson said today that the consumer court had given the company time until October 8 to explain “our position on the additional new tests.”
The company is still awaiting the results of the tests on the samples of the noodles conducted in the three independent laboratories as ordered by Bombay High Court, the spokesperson added.
The company, in response to the complaint filed in the consumer court, has raised concerns over the “maintainability” of the complaint, in effect questioning the very basis of the class action suit filed by the consumer affairs department.
“This is based on the fact that the complaint makes allegations similar to those leading to the ban on the product on June 5 this year, which was quashed by Bombay High Court on August 13,” the spokesperson said.
Nestle said it has already done over 3,500 tests of Maggi noodles in independent and accredited laboratories and all the test results show that the noodles are safe to eat.
Food standards authorities in Australia, Canada, Singapore, the UK and the US, have found Maggi noodles manufactured by Nestle India to be safe after inquiries made there, the company said in a statement sent via email.
