FNB News: Mumbai: Thursday,
April 03, 2014.
The Bombay
High Court granted the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) a
three-week deadline to reply to its notification after the country’s apex food
regulator amended the existing regulations to permit companies manufacturing
energy drinks, such as Red Bull, to increase their caffeine content beyond the
stipulated limit. There were two hearings of a public interest litigation to
this effect in the High Court recently, and as FSSAI failed to reply to its
notification, the amendment was stayed.
Petitioner
Yajurvedi Rao filed a right to information (RTI) application seeking
information about the increased caffeine content in Red Bull. As per the
information he obtained, samples of the energy drink were seized in 2009 by
officials of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Maharashtra, and these were
found to contain over 200mg caffeine per litre, which was higher than the
prescribed limit. Moreover, it stated that Alibaug judicial magistrate had
ordered that the seized samples be destroyed.
Anjali Purav,
Rao’s advocate, said, “When FSSAI amended the existing regulations to permit
energy drink makers, such as Red Bull, to add caffeine beyond the prescribed
limits, Rao filed an PIL against the regulator, pointing out that they did so
without evaluating the risk to consumers’ health. While the existing
regulations stipulated that the prescribed caffeine limit in energy drinks was
145mg per litre, the amended regulations stipulate that caffeinated beverages
should contain not less than 145mg caffeine per litre and not more than 320mg
per litre.”
“Through the
new amendments the authority proposed to make caffeinated beverages an
additional category to those provided in the Food Safety and Standards Act
(FSSA), 2006. It also undertook the said exercise for the purpose of permitting
companies to sell beverages containing caffeine. The most prominent of these
was Red Bull,” she added. This information was given to the bench comprising
Justices V M Kanade and G S Kulkarni. Purav urged them to restrain the
regulator from doing so.
Purav warned
that the consumption of caffeine in excess of the prescribed limit could be
dangerous. The advocate stated, “Caffeine, being a stimulant, could have an
adverse effect on all parts of the body. And that is the reason the Food Safety
and Standards Authority of India should refrain from permitting companies
manufacturing caffeinated beverages to increase it beyond the stipulated limit.
Moreover, in India, there is no supervision to keep the sale and consumption of
these beverages in check.”
.JPG)
.JPG)
