EVERY PERSON HAS A RIGHT TO KNOW WHAT THEY ARE CONSUMING : DELHI HIGH COURT
In a recent ruling, the Delhi High Court observed that every person has a right to be informed about what he is consuming. The division bench, comprising Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh, was hearing a plea moved by a trust comprising members following a strict vegetarian lifestyle. They were aggrieved by the fact that manufacturers of a plethora of products, including eatables, were keeping consumers in the dark by not disclosing the real source of the ingredients.
The bench noted that it has found that several food articles which have ingredients sourced from animals are shown as “vegetarian” by affixing a green dot on the packaging.
The Delhi high court has ruled that there should be complete disclosure of all ingredients used to manufacture any food article so that people can determine if they are truly “vegetarian” or “non-vegetarian”, adding that “every person has a right to know what they are consuming and nothing can be offered to the person on a platter by resort to deceit, or camouflage”.
Use of non-vegetarian ingredients and labelling them vegetarian would offend religious and cultural sentiments of strict vegetarians and interfere in their right to freely profess their religion, Court added.
The division bench added that the ingredients used in the manufacturing process should not only be written in code, but also by source of origin -- plant or animal, made naturally or manufactured in a laboratory.
The High Court further warned the food manufacturers that failure on their part to comply with the regulations would expose themselves to, “class action for violation of the fundamental rights of the consuming public and invite punitive damages, apart from prosecution”.
The high court directed the Centre and FSSAI to ensure that there should be full and complete disclosure of all the ingredients which go into the manufacture of any food article.
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