Tukaram Mundhe has brought Maharashtra’s Food and Drug Administration the sense of urgency it badly needed. Every restaurant now takes inspection seriously. The Bombay High Court, meanwhile, has spent much of the summer appearing to clip the Maharashtra FDA chief’s wings.
Since Mundhe took charge, we have identified at least sixteen disputes over FDA action that have produced reasoned orders in the High Court. All sixteen have gone against the department. It is tempting to see this as the court poking its nose into administration. We think the court has no other option.The Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA), 2006, bakes a serious weakness into the FDA’s institutional legitimacy: a business challenging a licence suspension is forced to appeal before the Commissioner who heads the department (here, Mundhe) that imposed it. In effect, the law rolls judge, jury and executioner all into one role. That cuts against the spirit of the Constitution’s separation-of-powers principle: final review of the exercise of public power should not lie with the same authority that wields the stick. As things stand, the High Court’s interference is the only independent check against unjust exercise of power.
