Cadbury row: FDA chief may go

Apparently, Khobragade is being eased out for not taking FDA Minister Anil Deshmukh into confidence before taking on the company. He will most likely be shifted to the Cultural Affairs Department although the bureaucrat himself denies that he was under pressure from any politician in dealing with the company.

FDA minister Anil Deshmukh, who belongs to the Nationalist Congress Party, also denied that Khobragade is being eased out. ‘‘I don’t know if they (Cadbury) approached leading politicians. Senior officials of Cadbury called on me to submit a memorandum. Since I am Cabinet minister of the department, there is nothing unethical,’’ he said.

The FDA has registered four cases against Cadbury, one for each of the contaminated or stale pieces purchased from four different outlets across the state. All four cases were filed just days after the minister visited the Cadbury plant at Talegaon and said, ‘‘Conditions maintained by the company are more than satisfactory.’’

After Deshmukh gave it a clean chit, commissioner Khobragade even served show-cause notices on the company for non-hygienic conditions at the very same Talegaon unit and another located at Phaltan near Satara.

As per FDA rules, the investigating officer has to file a complaint before a magistrate on completing investigations. ‘‘We are already in possession of chocolates containing worms. The process of

completing the investigation and filing a chargesheet will take nearly two months,’’ said the FDA chief.

Khobragade, who says his office is ‘‘being flooded with complaints against Cadbury,’’ blames the company for not acting on time to resolve the problem. After worms were found in some products, Khobragade asked the company to immediately withdraw them from the market in public interest. Instead, he says, the company chose to attribute the issue to unappropriate storage conditions in retail outlets.

‘‘Once worms were found, it should have withdrawn products even without waiting for our directives,’’ Khobragade said. ‘‘Before granting dealership or appointing redistributors, it was the company’s responsibility to verify whether the redistributor has facility to store such products. Even under FDA rules, the manufacturer has equal responsibility.’’

Cadbury spokesperson Parveen Vasaigara was silent regarding the charge that the company approached politicians for help.

A statement from Cadbury said, ‘‘The company…has initiated a drive to check storage conditions of the entire distribution chain in and around key towns of Maharashtra. As a concerned company that has remained committed to quality for over 55 years, we have, proactively initiated immediate steps to further strengthen our existing packaging’’.