After Bombay High Court’s order of resuming sales of Maggi noodles, the food regulator authority filed a plea in the Supreme Court seeking a stay order on the same. To this, Nestle India has expressed their opposition and also complained about the unreasonable and non-transparent manner in which the FSSAI had banned sales of Maggi noodles in June after samples were found to contain monosodium glutamate, a flavour enhancer, and excessive levels of lead.

Nestle India stated,

“The action of the food authority was arbitrary and high-handed insofar as samples were taken only from three variants, all nine variants were banned. It’s only when contamination of food is an imminent threat that immediate order of prohibition can be passed, whereas there was no risk analysis made by the food authorities to determine the extent of damage that would be caused by consumption of the product”.

A few samples were taken by the food safety officer and cleared tests for lead conducted by three accredited labs. And, on 9 November 2015, Maggi sales resumed after the tests showed that lead was within permissible limits. The company has resumed production of the product at all five of its plants- in Punjab, Karnataka, Uttrakhand, Goa and Himachal Pradesh.

The company also claimed it had sent fresh samples abroad to labs in Europe and all of them had declared Maggi safe for consumption. Nestle has also sought a stay from the top court in proceedings pending against it in the national consumer court.