UP govt directed to specify its food adulteration control measures

Allahabad, Oct 9 (UNI) The Allahabad High Court has directed the Uttar Pradesh government to present concrete examples of what had been achieved by conducting a genuine campaign for checking adulteration of food items in the state.

The HC noted such campaign should not become a one time endeavour or merely an example of convening meetings and engagements in black and white with no actual implementation or impact at the ground level.

Passing this order in the matter of food adulteration, a bench comprising Justices Imitiyaz Murtaza and Amar Saran observed ''adulteration is a crime, which has now assumed the proportion of a social scourage...it means no one is safe any more.'' The state government had filed a document, stating a total of 132 food adulteration cases were registered in the past five years, which included 28 from Meerut, Moradabad 22, Kanpur 17, Agra 16, 11 each in Bareilly and Lucknow, while Saharanpur 10.

Of 359 accused, 320 had been arrested, while 18 had surrendered.

Chargesheets had been submitted in 94 cases. In 31 cases, investigations were pending.

The HC stated the persual of this document shows that as 132 cases of grave food adulteration had been detected, this is obviously only the tip of the iceberg and the number of raids must be increased to curb this grave crime of food adulteration from branch.

The court will hear the case on November 12.

UNI