MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras HC directed the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India to grant time to AR Dairy Food Private Limited to submit an explanation on the allegations that the company had delivered substandard ghee to Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam.
A bench of Justices R Subramanian and L Victoria Gowri gave the direction while disposing of a petition moved by the company claiming FSSAI had issued a show cause notice to it on September 27, without following the procedures under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
In the petition, the company’s authorised signatory G Kannan, stated the company had secured a contract to supply 10 lakh kilo of ghee to TTD between June 6, 2024 and October 30, 2024. Though the first four consignments were successfully delivered, TTD rejected the subsequent consignments based on a report by a Gujarat-based laboratory.
TTD also issued show cause notices seeking an explanation as to why not the contract be cancelled and the company blacklisted. Though a food safety officer subsequently collected samples from the company’s manufacturing unit in Dindigul, the samples were not sent for analysis, Kannan claimed.
Without analysing the samples, FSSAI also issued a show cause notice relying on the Gujarat-based laboratory’s report and has been trying to suspend the company’s licence without providing adequate time to explain, he further alleged.