The Delhi High Court has terminated a 31-year-old criminal case against food manufacturer Kancor Ingredients Limited over missing batch and code numbers on sealed marinade packets, ruling that regulators cannot prosecute companies for initial technical labelling defects without serving a prior written warning.
In an order issued on September 14, Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma set aside the complaint and connected trial court proceedings, pointing out that the food product met all quality benchmarks and was neither contaminated nor unsafe. The court held that under official enforcement guidelines, first-time labelling omissions on untainted food products represent technical infractions that warrant an administrative caution rather than immediate criminal litigation.
Seizure At New Friends Colony Restaurant
The legal battle originated on October 31, 1995, when a Delhi food inspector visited a PepsiCo restaurant in New Friends Colony and seized three sealed 680-gram packets of Hot and Spicy Marinade. Following laboratory examination, a public analyst declared the consignment misbranded under Rules 32(e) and 32(f) of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Rules, 1955, because the packaging failed to display a batch, lot, or identification code.
The marinade had been supplied to PepsiCo by Kancor Flavours and Extracts Limited, which was alleged to have imported the packets from a manufacturer in Singapore. Authorities subsequently initiated criminal proceedings against 11 parties, naming the enterprise alongside its directors and general managers. The litigation remained before the magistrate for years, culminating in a 2010 trial court directive requiring the remaining accused to appear in person for the framing of notice.
Statutory Protection For Technical Deficiencies
Challenging the prosecution before the High Court, Senior Advocate Pramod Kumar Dubey, appearing with advocates Puneet Relan, Ramchandurni B Siddhartha, Khushi Arora, and Shivangi Mishra, contended that the allegations were confined strictly to labelling omissions and contained no claims of adulteration. The defence argued that under a September 20, 1985 government notification, regulators must issue a written warning for an initial breach of Rule 32, with criminal action permissible only if the company repeats the violation. The counsel noted that authorities never served any warning to the firm before lodging the complaint.
Justice Sharma accepted the submission, highlighting that the 1985 circular explicitly addressed situations where sealed food items satisfy substantive quality criteria but fall short of Rule 32 labelling standards. The court observed that the public analyst report contained no findings that the marinade was adulterated, substandard, or otherwise defective in its composition.
The bench noted that while adulterated food products forfeit the protections of the warning policy and permit simultaneous prosecution for quality and packaging breaches, unadulterated items missing lot identifiers remain protected. Concluding that the absence of a prior written notice invalidated the legal action, the High Court quashed the complaint and all subsequent proceedings against the company and its officials.
