Life imprisonment maybe imposed on food adulterators

January 18, 2017

The Law Commission of India has proposed increasing punishment for people responsible for food adulteration from six months to life imprisonment. The Commission has further decided to increase the fines for such offenders from the existing Rs 1,000 to Rs 10 lakh. The commission has prepared a detailed report on amending the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for the same. The proposed amendments include Section 272 (adulteration of food and drinks) and 273 (sale of noxious food or drinks) of the IPC. The report shall be submitted to the Centre by the Law Commission within 3 weeks. The government shall also consider setting up special courts for speedy disposal of food adulteration cases. The Law Commission while making this proposal has laid emphasis on the amendments to food adulteration laws by states like Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal. The three states have already made food adulteration punishable with life imprisonment. The panel has also proposed that a certain amount of compensation should be provided to victims of food adulteration. The panel has categorised food adulteration into four, with different punishments for different categories. The panel further stated that the minimum punishment for food adulteration is six months if no injury is caused and the maximum is life imprisonment, if adulterated food causes the death of a person. The person accused will also be liable to pay a fine of Rs 10 lakh in case of death due to adulteration. If adulterated substance causes non-grievous injury, the adulterators would have to serve 1-year jail term and pay a fine of Rs 3 lakh. For grievous injury due to adulterated food, offenders can be awarded with imprisonment upto six years and will also have to pay a fine of up to Rs 5 lakh.

The government had asked the Law Commission to examine the laws on food adulteration after the Supreme Court passed an order favouring stringent punishment. In August 2016, the apex court had said that it was high time that the Centre amends the IPC to make the punishment deterrent in such matters.

According to a 2011 report of Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), over 68 per cent milk sold in the country is adulterated. The report, also considered by the SC, stated the situation was worst in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal, Mizoram, Jharkhand and Daman and Diu, where milk adulteration was found up to 100 per cent.

OUR TAKE

The amendments proposed by the Law Commission in terms of increasing the punishment with regard to food adulteration was much required in order to deter future offenders, as the number of food adulteration cases have been constantly increasing. Present laws have now become out-dated and hence new adulteration laws have become the need of the hour.