The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006

(1) This Act may be called the Food Safety andStandards Act, 2006. (2) It extends to the whole of India. (3) It shall come into force on such date1 as the Central Government may, by notification in theOfficial Gazette, appoint, and different dates may be appointed for different provisions of this Act andany reference in any such provision to the commencement of this Act shall be construed as a reference tothe coming into force of that provision.

It is hereby declared that it is expedientin the public interest that the Union should take under its control the food industry.

(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,-- (a) "adulterant" means any material which is or could be employed for making the food unsafeor sub-standard or mis-branded or containing extraneous matter; (b) "advertisement" means any audio or visual publicity, representation or pronouncement madeby means of any light, sound, smoke, gas, print, electronic media, internet or website and includesthrough any notice, circular, label, wrapper, invoice or other documents; (c) "Chairperson" means the Chairperson of the Food Authority; (d) "claim" means any representation which states, suggests, or implies that a food has particularqualities relating to its origin, nutritional properties, nature, processing, composition or otherwise; (e) "Commissioner of Food Safety" means the Commissioner of Food Safety appointed undersection 30; (f) "consumer" means persons and families purchasing and receiving food in order to meet theirpersonal needs; (g) "contaminant" means any substance, whether or not added to food, but which is present insuch food as a result of the production (including operations carried out in crop husbandry, animalhusbandry or veterinary medicine), manufacture, processing, preparation, treatment, packing,packaging, transport or holding of such food or as a result of environmental contamination and doesnot include insect fragments, rodent hairs and other extraneous matter; (h) "Designated Officer" means the officer appointed under section 36; (i) "extraneous matter' means any matter contained in an article of food which may be carriedfrom the raw materials, packaging materials or process systems used for its manufacture or which isadded to it, but such matter does not render such article of food unsafe; (j) 'Food" means any substance, whether processed, partially processed or unprocessed, which isintended for human consumption and includes primary food to the extent defined in clause (zk),genetically modified or engineered food or food containing such ingredients, infant food, packageddrinking water, alcoholic drink, chewing gum, and any substance, including water used into the foodduring its manufacture, preparation or treatment but does not include any animal feed, live animalsunless they are prepared or processed for placing on the market for human consumption, plants, priorto harvesting, drugs and medicinal products, cosmetics, narcotic or psychotropic substances: Provided that the Central Government may declare, by notification in the Official Gazette, anyother article as food for the purposes of this Act having regards to its use, nature, substance orquality; (k) "food additive" means any substance not normally consumed as a food by itself or used as atypical ingredient of the food, whether or not it has nutritive value, the intentional addition of whichto food for a technological (including organoleptic) purpose in the manufacture, processing,preparation, treatment, packing, packaging, transport or holding of such food results, or may bereasonably expected to result (directly or indirectly), in it or its by-products becoming a componentof or otherwise affecting the characteristics of such food but does not include contaminants orsubstances added to food for maintaining or improving nutritional qualities; (l) "Food Analyst" means an analyst appointed under section 45; (m) "Food Authority" means the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India established undersection 4; (n) "food business" means any undertaking, whether for profit or not and whether public orprivate, carrying out any of the activities related to any stage of manufacture, processing, packaging,storage, transportation, distribution of food, import and includes food services, catering services, saleof food or food ingredients; (o) "food business operator" in relation to food business means a person by whom the business iscarried on or owned and is responsible for ensuring the compliance of this Act, rules and regulationsmade thereunder; (p) "food laboratory" means any food laboratory or institute established by the Central or a StateGovernment or any other agency and accredited by National Accreditation Board for Testing andCalibration Laboratories or an equivalent accreditation agency and recognised by the Food Authorityunder section 43; (q) "food safety" means assurance that food is acceptable for human consumption according toits intended use; (r) "food safety audit" means a systematic and functionally independent examination of foodsafety measures adopted by manufacturing units to determine whether such measures and relatedresults meet with objectives of food safety and the claims made in that behalf; (s) "Food Safety Management System" means the adoption Good Manufacturing Practices, GoodHygienic Practices, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point and such other practices as may bespecified by regulation, for the food business; (t) "Food Safety Officer" means an officer appointed under section 37; (u) "hazard" means a biological, chemical or physical agent in, or condition of, food with thepotential to cause an adverse health effect; (v) "import" means bringing into India any article of food by land, sea or air; (w) "improvement notice" means a notice issued under section 32 of this Act; (x) "infant food" and "infant milk" substitute shall have the meanings assigned to them in clauses(f) and (g) of sub-section (1) of section 2 of the Infant Milk Substitutes, Feeding Bottles and InfantFoods (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 1992 (41 of 1992), respectively; (y) "ingredient" means any substance, including a food additive used in the manufacture orpreparation of food and present in the final product, possibly in a modified form; (z) 'label" means any tag, brand, mark, pictorial or other descriptive matter, written, printed,stencilled, marked, embossed, graphic, perforated, stamped or impressed on or attached to container,cover, lid or crown of any food package and includes a product insert; (za) "licence" means a licence granted under section 31; (zb) 'local area' means any area, whether urban or rural, notified by the Commissioner of FoodSafety, to be a local area for the purposes of this Act; (zc) "manufacture" means a process or adoption or any treatment for conversion of ingredientsinto an article of food, which includes any sub-process, incidental or ancillary to the manufacture ofan article of food; (zd) "manufacturer" means a person engaged in the business of manufacturing any article of foodfor sale and includes any person who obtains such article from another person and packs and labels itfor sale or only labels it for such purposes; 1[(ze) "Member" includes a part-time Member and the Chairperson of the Food Authority;] (zf) "misbranded food" means an article of food-- (A) if it is purported, or is represented to be, or is being-- (i) offered or promoted for sale with false, misleading or deceptive claims either; (a) upon the label of the package, or (b) through advertisement, or (ii) sold by a name which belongs to another article of food; or (iii) offered or promoted for sale under the name of a fictitious individual or company asthe manufacturer or producer of the article as borne on the package or containing the articleor the label on such package; or (B) if the article is sold in packages which have been sealed or prepared by or at the instanceof the manufacturer or producer bearing his name and address but-- (i) the article is an imitation of, or is a substitute for, or resembles in a manner likely todeceive, another article of food under the name of which it is sold, and is not plainly andconspicuously labelled so as to indicate its true character; or (ii) the package containing the article or the label on the package bears any statement,design or device regarding the ingredients or the substances contained therein, which is falseor misleading in any material particular, or if the package is otherwise deceptive with respectto its contents; or (iii) the article is offered for sale as the product of any place or country which is false; or (C) if the article contained in the package-- (i) contains any artificial flavouring, colouring or chemical preservative and the packageis without a declaratory label stating that fact or is not labelled in accordance with therequirements of this Act or regulations made thereunder or is in contravention thereof; or (ii) is offered for sale for special dietary uses, unless its label bears such information asmay be specified by regulation, concerning its vitamins, minerals or other dietary propertiesin order sufficiently to inform its purchaser as to its value for such use; or (iii) is not conspicuously or correctly stated on the outside thereof within the limits ofvariability laid down under this Act. (zg) "notification" means a notification published in the Official Gazette; (zh) "package" means a pre-packed box, bottle, casket, tin, barrel, case, pouch, receptacle, sack,bag, wrapper or such other things in which an article of food is packed; (zi) "premises" include any shop, stall, hotel, restaurant, airline services and food canteens, placeor vehicle or vessel where any article of food is sold or manufactured or stored for sale; (zj) "prescribed" means prescribed by rules made by the Central Government or the StateGovernment, as the case may be under this Act; (zk) "primary food" means an article of food, being a produce of agriculture or horticulture oranimal husbandry and dairying or aquaculture in its natural form, resulting from the growing, raising,cultivation, picking, harvesting, collection or catching in the hands of a person other than a farmer orfisherman; (zl) "prohibition order" means an order issued under section 33 of this Act; (zm) "risk", in relation to any article of food, means the probability of an adverse effect on thehealth of consumers of such food and the severity of that effect, consequential to a food hazard; (zn) "risk analysis", in relation to any article of food, means a process consisting of threecomponents, i.e. risk assessment, risk management and risk communication; (zo) "risk assessment" means a scientifically based process consisting of the following steps:(i) hazard identification, (ii) hazard characterisation; (iii) exposure assessment, and (iv) riskharacterisation; (zp) "risk communication" means the interactive exchange of information and opinionsthroughout the risk analysis process concerning risks, risk-related factors and risk perceptions,among risk assessors, risk managers, consumers, industry, the academic community and otherinterested parties, including the explanation of risk assessment findings and the basis of riskmanagement decisions; (zq) "risk management" means the process, distinct from risk assessment, of evaluating policyalternatives, in consultation with all interested parties considering risk assessment and other factorsrelevant for the protection of health of consumers and for the promotion of fair trade practices, and, ifneeded, selecting appropriate prevention and control options; (zr)"sale" with its grammatical variations and cognate expressions, means the sale of any articleof food, whether for cash or on credit or by way of exchange and whether by wholesale or retail, forhuman consumption or use, or for analysis, and includes an agreement for sale, an offer for sale, theexposing for sale or having in possession for sale of any such article, and includes also an attempt tosell any such article; (zs) "sample" means a sample of any article of food taken under the provisions of this Act or anyrules and regulations made thereunder; (zt) 'specified by regulations" means specified by regulations made by the Food Authority; (zu) "standard", in relation to any article of food, means the standards notified by the FoodAuthority; (zv)"State Government" in relation to a Union territory" means the Administrator of that Unionterritory appointed by the President under article 239 of the Constitution; (zw) "substance" includes any natural or artificial substance or other matter, whether it is in asolid state or in liquid form or in the form of gas or vapour; (zx) "sub-standard" an article of food shall be deemed to be sub-standard if it does not meet thespecified standards but not so as to render the article of food unsafe; (zy) 'Tribunal" means the Food Safety Appellate Tribunal established under section 70; (zz) "unsafe food" means an article of food whose nature, substance or quality is so affected as torender it injurious to health:-- (i) by the article itself, or its package thereof, which is composed, whether wholly or inpart, of poisonous or deleterious substances; or (ii) by the article consisting, wholly or in part, of any filthy, putrid, rotten, decomposedor diseased animal substance or vegetable substance; or (iii) by virtue of its unhygienic processing or the presence in that article of any harmfulsubstance; or (iv) by the substitution of any inferior or cheaper substance whether wholly or in part; or (v) by addition of a substance directly or as an ingredient which is not permitted; or (vi) by the abstraction, wholly or in part, of any of its constituents; or (vii) by the article being so coloured, flavoured or coated, powdered or polished, as todamage or conceal the article or to make it appear better or of greater value than it really is;or (viii) by the presence of any colouring matter or preservatives other than that specified inrespect thereof; or (ix) by the article having been infected or infested with worms, weevils, or insects; or (x) by virtue of its being prepared, packed or kept under insanitary conditions; or (xi) by virtue of its being mis-branded or sub-standard or food containing extraneousmatter; or (xii) by virtue of containing pesticides and other contaminants in excess of quantitiesspecified by regulations. (2) Any reference in this Act to a law which is not in force in the State of Jammu and Kashmir* shall,in relation to that State, be construed as a reference to the corresponding Law, if any, in force in thatState.

(1) The Central Governmentshall, by notification, establish a body to be known as the Food Safety and Standards Authority of Indiato exercise the powers conferred on, and to perform the functions assigned to, it under this Act. (2) The Food Authority shall be a body corporate by the name aforesaid, having perpetual successionand a common seal with power to acquire, hold and dispose of property, both movable and immovable,and to contract and shall, by the said name, sue or be sued. (3) The head office of the Food Authority shall be at Delhi. (4) The Food Authority may establish its offices at any other place in India.

(1) The Food Authority shall consist of a Chairperson and the following twenty-twomembers out of which one-third shall be women, namely:-- (a) seven Members, not below the rank of a Joint Secretary to the Government of India, to beappointed by the Central Government, to respectively represent the Ministries or Departments of theCentral Government dealing with-- (i) Agriculture, (ii) Commerce, (iii) Consumer Affairs, (iv) Food Processing, (v) Health, (vi) Legislative Affairs, (vii) Small Scale Industries, (viii) who shall be Members ex officio; (b) two representatives from food industry of which one shall be from small scale industries; (c) two representatives from consumer organisations; (d) three eminent food technologists or scientists; (e) five members to be appointed by rotation every three years, one each in seriatim from theZones as specified in the First Schedule to represent the States and the Union territories; (f) two persons to represent farmers' organisations; (g) one person to represent retailers' organisations. (2) The Chairperson and other Members of the Food Authority shall be appointed in such a mannerso as to secure the highest standards of competence, broad range of relevant expertise, and shallrepresent, the broadest possible geographic distribution within the country. (3) The Chairperson shall be appointed by the Central Government from amongst the persons ofeminence in the field of food science or from amongst the persons from the administration who havebeen associated with the subject and is either holding or has held the position of not below the rank ofSecretary to the Government of India. 1[(4) The Chairperson and the Members including part-time Members other than the ex officioembers of the Food Authority may be appointed by the Central Government on the recommendations ofthe Selection Committee. (5) The Chairperson of the Food Authority shall not hold any other office.]