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SC sets aside HC ruling against PepsiCo in pesticide case
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Saturday, 20 November, 2010, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Our Bureau, New Delhi
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The Supreme Court on Thursday set aside a Kerala High Court judgement and quashed criminal proceedings against FMCG major PepsiCo India Holdings Pvt Ltd in a case pertaining to presence of pesticide residues in their sift drinks exceeding permissible limits. The charges were that such drinks were injurious to public health as per the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954.
Perusing an appeal by PepsiCo against the Kerala High Court ruling, the bench comprising justices Altamas Kabir and Cyriac Joseph, said “… the mere presence of pesticide residue does not ipso facto render the article of food adulterated.”
“The High Court appears to have overlooked the fact that the percentage of pesticides found by the Public Analyst in the sweetened carbonated water manufactured by the appellants (PepsiCo) was within the tolerance limits subsequently prescribed in respect of such products.”
The apex court said that the High Court had itself observed that mere presence of pesticide residue to any extent could not justify an allegation that the article of food was adulterated.
The state government relied on a report of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a Delhi-based NGO, which had conducted a study regarding the presence of pesticide residues in Pepsi and Coca-Cola. According to the tests conducted by the Pollution Monitoring Laboratory of CSE, all the samples contained residues of four extremely toxic pesticides and insecticides – lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyrofs.
According to test results, the groundwater used for making soft drinks had levels of pesticide residues, which far exceeded the minimum residue limit for pesticides in the water used as ‘food,’set down by the European Economic Commission. In all PepsiCo brands, the total pesticides on an average were 0.0180 mg/litre, 36 times higher than the EEC limit of total pesticides at 0.0005 mg/litre.
A PepsiCo India spokesman said, “PepsiCo has always been committed to ensuring worldclass quality of its products manufactured everywhere in the world and diligently follows all statutory and regulatory requirements. The SC verdict is a reaffirmation of this commitment of ours.”
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