Consolidates the law relating to food and establishes the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. It is a complete code: it lays down its own offences, its own adjudication and prosecution machinery, and by s.89 overrides other food-related laws. Adulteration prosecutions are routinely filed under both this Act and the IPC/BNS, which raises a maintainability question that must be taken at the threshold.
No food business operator shall himself or by any person on his behalf manufacture, store, sell or distribute any article of food which is unsafe, misbranded or sub-standard, or contains extraneous matter, or is in contravention of any provision of this Act.
The Commissioner of Food Safety shall appoint a Designated Officer, not below the rank of a Sub-Divisional Officer, for each district. The Designated Officer issues and cancels licences, prohibits sale of any article of food in the interest of public health, and sanctions prosecutions.
The Food Safety Officer may take a sample of any food, seize any article of food which appears to contravene the Act, enter and inspect any place where food is manufactured, stored or exposed for sale, and shall follow the sampling procedure prescribed.
Any purchaser of an article of food may, on payment of the prescribed fee, have that article analysed by the Food Analyst and receive a report. The right protects an accused who disputes the prosecution's analysis.
The Food Safety Officer shall inspect and submit a report to the Designated Officer. The Designated Officer, after scrutiny, shall decide whether to launch prosecution, and prosecution is launched with his approval. A prosecution not routed through this machinery is open to challenge on maintainability — a private or police complaint is not the procedure the Act prescribes.
The Food Analyst shall analyse the sample and send the report to the Designated Officer within fourteen days. The report is evidence of the facts stated in it, and where it does not establish that the article is unsafe it cuts against the prosecution as much as for it.
Where any person keeps or offers for sale an adulterant, he shall be liable to a penalty — up to two lakh rupees where the adulterant is not injurious to health, and up to ten lakh rupees where it is injurious to health.
Any person who manufactures, stores, sells, distributes or imports any article of food for human consumption which is unsafe shall be punishable — the term and fine graded by whether the act causes no injury, non-grievous injury, grievous injury, or death.
If any person carries on a food business without a licence, he shall be punishable with imprisonment which may extend to six months and with fine which may extend to five lakh rupees.
The provisions of this Act shall have effect notwithstanding anything inconsistent contained in any other law for the time being in force in so far as that law relates to the nature or quality of any article of food or any other matter covered by this Act. This is the provision on which a challenge to a parallel IPC/BNS adulteration prosecution is founded.
Repeals the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act 1954 and other listed enactments, with savings for things done under them. Relevant when the alleged offence straddles the changeover.
The text shown is a working summary used inside Nyaya for grounding and UI preview. For verbatim reproduction, refer to the bare Act published on indiacode.nic.in.