Milk adulteration: Supreme Court favours life imprisonment as maximum punishment

It preferred the amendments made to Section 272 (adulteration of food and drinks) in the IPC by states such as Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and West Benagl, providing life term as the maximum punishment for adulteration.

The bench also recalled its order in December 2013 and again in December 2014 whereby the central government was nudged by it to bring suitable amendments in the IPC to provide for maximum punishment on par with states like UP, Odisha and West Bengal.

“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… it will be in order that the Union of India come up with suitable amendments in the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and the Union of India shall also make penal provisions on par with the provisions contained in the State amendments,” said the court.

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The bench added “it is also desirable that Union of India revisits the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 to revise the punishment for adulteration
making it more deterrent in cases where the adulterant can have an adverse impact on health”.

It was hearing a PIL filed by Swamy Achyutanand Tirth and others, highlighting the sale of adulterated and synthetic milk in different parts of the country. The court issued a slew of directives, asking the Centre and state governments to prosecute the offenders apart from putting in place a strong regime for checking adulteration of food and milk.

“For curbing milk adulteration, an appropriate state level committee headed by the Chief Secretary or the Secretary of Dairy Department and District level Committee headed by the concerned District Collector shall be constituted as is done in the state of Maharashtra to take the review of the work done to curb the milk adulteration in the district and in the state by the authorities,” directed the court.