CHENNAI: An organic farmer has moved the Madras High Court with a PIL petition challenging the latest food safety rules, mandating certification to sell organic produce even in domestic market.
A division bench of Justices S Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad, before which the PIL from Selvam Ramaswamy of Erode came up for hearing, ordered notice to the Union government, returnable in three weeks.
Petitioner wanted the bench to declare the Food Safety and Standards (Organic Foods) Regulation, 2017 notified on January 2 last, as ultra vires of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and hence, unconstitutional.
According to petitioner, under the National Programme for Organic Production (NPOP), certification of the organic farming process, which commences from the seeding stage, is mandatory for those who export their produce alone. In all other cases, the requirement is only voluntary.
However, the Centre on January 2 last notified the regulation which states that even individual farmers, who sell their produce in the domestic market, shall also take the certification which is a tedious process and financially unviable for small farmers. Claiming that a regulation introduced under an Act is ultra vires of the Act itself, the petitioner wanted the court to declare it unconstitutional.