On Friday, the Bombay High Court chastised the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for giving the Mantralaya (State Secretariat) canteen a virtually flawless rating, while suspending private restaurant licenses for minor flaws.
When performing their inspections, a bench of Acting Chief Justice (ACJ) Ravindra Ghuge and Justice Gautam Ankhad questioned if the agency was treating government and private institutions differently.
It called the FDA’s 98% assessment of the Mantralaya canteen “laughable” and dispatched a team of four attorneys to conduct another inspection. The court also found other anomalies in the inspection reports and declared the cleanliness grade to be fraudulent.
The bench questioned whether the regulator solely targets private businesses, stating that it must be “fair, impartial, and uniform” in its approach to hotels and restaurants.
The hotel in the Fort district of Mumbai that the court was referring to had its license withdrawn after receiving a score of just 37%.
The government counsel’s argument that there were no insects in the state secretariat canteen was denied.
Even large five-star hotels have cockroaches and flies. It expressed displeasure that the FDA had simply sent pictures of the canteen and asked, “Then, how can the Mantralaya canteen be so flawless?”
The FDA must guarantee fair and transparent treatment for both public and private organizations, the court ruled.
The judge ordered an FDA team to re-inspect the canteen with four attorneys.
However, with the possibility of a re-inspection and an abrupt improvement in cleanliness, the mood in the state secretariat canteen appeared to have changed.
Food products are now covered with new protective mesh screens, and employees were observed donning hairnets and gloves. FDA representatives examined food quality, hygienic procedures, canteen administration, and adherence to food safety laws.
Photographs shown in court during the hearing allegedly showed an incredibly filthy refrigerator defrost compartment, water stagnation, leaking taps, soiled floors, and a broken drainage pipeline.
After looking at the pictures, the High Court said, “even a shoe rack is cleaner than this.”
The canteens at Mantralaya and Vidhan Bhavan will get notices instructing them to make the required changes.