New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Centre to suitably amend the law making milk adulteration a more serious offence and awarding stringent punishment to the offenders.
Giving this direction while disposing of petition filed by Swami Achyutanand Tirth and others, a three-judge Bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur and Justices Ms. R. Banumathi and Uday Lalit referred to a report of milk samples collected from various states and said “the result of the survey confirms that the samples of milk were diluted with water or found to have been adulterated with chemicals.”
Writing the judgment Justice Banumathi said “Since in India traditionally infants/children are fed milk, adulteration of milk and its products is a concern and stringent measures need to be taken to combat it. The consumption of adulterated milk and adulterated milk products is hazardous to human health.
“Nutritional value of milk is compromised by mixing water and other harmful agents. The consumption of adulterated milk and milk products is hazardous to human health and the state of affairs is alarming.”
The Bench noted that “adulteration of milk with water is used to increase the volume of milk and brings down the nutritional value, and contaminated water in adulterated milk can cause gastroenteritis, stomach ailments, etc. Adulte-ration of milk with chemicals like caustic soda and detergents etc. is very serious. Prolonged consumption of milk adulterated with chemicals may affect vital body organs and may pose health risk to the infants, children and also adults.” The Bench asked the Centre to come up with suitable amendments in the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and the Indian Penal Code to make milk adulteration a serious offence. It said such norms are necessary because it is stated that even milk from healthy cows and buffalos is vulnerable to bacterial contamination.
