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Food courts still stuck in red tape

Despite SC nod weeks back, govt yet to deploy magistrates

Ashutosh Sarkar
The food courts are yet to go into operation due to red tape even though the Supreme Court cleared all obstacles a month and a half ago.
Consumers still wonder if the fruits and fish they buy have toxic formalin or the turmeric has lead in it. Over the years there have been several instances where even posh restaurants were discovered to have been serving adulterated food and renowned chain stores selling formalin-tainted fish.
The pure food courts were meant to deal with cases filed in connection with adulteration of food items to relieve consumers of
worries.
The law ministry on June 27 sent for approval to the Supreme Court a government decision to use judicial magistrates for presiding over the pure food courts at districts and four metropolitan cities.
The apex court sent an approval letter to the law ministry on September 10, Supreme Court Registrar AKM Shamsul Islam told The Daily Star.
However, Assistant Secretary to the Law Ministry Zahirul Kabir claimed that his office was yet to receive the letter.
He said his office would get the letter from the court very soon and then issue a
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gazette notification asking judicial magistrates to conduct the food courts.
In the wake of growing concern over food adulteration across the country, Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh in 2009 filed a public interest litigation seeking its directive on the government.
The High Court in June 2009 directed the government to set up pure food courts and appoint sufficient food analysts in each dis-
trict and metropolitan cities within two years.
In response, a few anti-adulteration drives were conducted. The mobile courts that operated the drives found some dishonest traders using toxic chemicals in local and imported fruits, fish, vegetables, eggs, baked items and juices. Unhygienic kitchens in many restaurants and fast food shops and date-expired processed food in the market were also found.
The authorities were supposed to file a progress report by July 1, 2011, on what they had done to protect the consumers but they failed to submit the document.
Such inaction on the part of the government prompted the court to issue a contempt rule last December which led the law ministry to issue a gazette notification saying that the government had set up a Pure Food Court in each district and Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi and Khulna metropolitan cities.