The high court Wednesday directed the government to furnish details of the existing staff strength and number of posts lying vacant in the food safety department (FSD).
Hearing a suo-moto Public Interest Litigation against foodadulteration, a division bench of Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur and Justice TashiRabstan directed the principal secretary, health and medical education, to filean affidavit indicating the available staff, vacant posts and selections inpipeline in the food safety department.
While the court directed officer to file the affidavitwithin four weeks, it listed the case for further hearing on May 1.
As the matter came up for hearing, senior advocate BashirAhmad Bashir—the amicus curiae—told the court that the government seems to be non-seriouswith regard to food adulteration.
“A slew of directions have been issued by this court toprovide staff to the food testing labs and the mobile vans, but palpably thegovernment seems to be in inertia (sic),” Bashir said.
He submitted that by passing the buck, the departmentsconcerned cannot shrug the responsibility for implementing the food safety Actin the state.
“How long shall people continue to consume poison in thename of food which is so adulterated? We have food testing labs which aredefunct for want of staff. What kind of milieu is this?” Bashir said.
The state’s additional advocate general, Shah Aamir,however, said the state is not non-serious about the steps to be taken forproviding staff to the food testing labs “as every one of us eats the same foodwhich is stated to be adulterated”.
On the last hearing date, the court had observed that it wasbecause of non-filling up of some important posts, including lab techniciansand instrumentation technicians, that the food testing labs werenon-functional.
In the backdrop of the observation, the court had soughtpresence of principal secretary, health and medical education department,commissioner/secretary, administrative reforms, inspections (ARI) and trainingsdepartment, commissioner food safety and secretary services selection board toremain present.
Besides the principal secretary H&ME department AtalDullu, commissioner food safety and standards department was Wednesday presentin the court.
Dullu informed the court that a proposal with regard toreorganisation of drug and food department stands submitted to the financedepartment.
“In keeping with the new proposal, the drug controller hasto work under commissioner food safety department,” he said.
In 2016, the high court had taken suo-moto cognisance ofnews reports published in Greater Kashmir on food adulteration and risingcancer incidence and treated these as a Public Interest Litigation.