Thiruvananthapuram:
The Commissionerate of Food Safety has landed in a fix with the hotels
and restaurants across the state demanding return of the fine
compounded from them during the various raids held in the past couple
of years.
The High Court has ruled
in favour of the Hotels and Restaurants Association and rapped the
commissionerate for collecting huge fines without improvement notices.
Kerala
Hotels and Restaurant Association (KHRA) president Jose Mohan said that
the food safety authorities had compounded fine to the tune of Rs 18
lakh.
“We have filed an appeal in the
HC to get back the fines collected from us illegally. The court has
already criticised the food safety authorities and asked them not to
compound the fines without giving 14 days’ time to rectify the problems.
If the conditions are not improved, they can cancel our licence,” said
Mr Jose Mohan.
He said that the authorities were not following the guidelines of the Food Safety and Standard Authority of India.
“They
cannot just come and confiscate the food items based on their
intuition. They should collect the statutory samples first, get them
tested at an authorised lab and action can be taken only after getting
the result,” he added.
A top official
of the commissionerate said that they had valid documents to prove that
fine was compounded legally. “Initially, there were around 15 cases
where we compounded fines without documents. But all other cases were
registered with valid proof,” said the official.
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