Discuss the role of FSSAI in ensuring food safety standards in India. Examine the recent Supreme Court intervention on front-of-pack warning labels in this context.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), created under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 to lay down science-based standards for food [1], is India's single food regulator. The Supreme Court's ongoing scrutiny of its front-of-pack (FOP) warning-label proposal tests precisely that scientific mandate.

Role of FSSAI in ensuring food safety

• Standard-setting: the FSS Act, 2006 consolidated eight earlier laws (PFA Act, 1954 and various Control Orders) into one authority under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, ending regulatory multiplicity [1].
• Rule-making on labelling: the Labelling and Display Regulations prescribe mandatory declarations and warning statements — for instance, supari packs must carry "CHEWING OF SUPARI IS INJURIOUS TO HEALTH" [2].
• Enforcement: licensing and registration of food businesses, surveillance sampling, and recall powers exercised through State Food Safety Commissioners.
• Consumer empowerment: the Eat Right India movement promotes safe and healthy eating as preventive health policy [3].

Examining the Supreme Court intervention

• Acting on a PIL, the Court treated FOP warnings as a matter of public importance, expressly citing concern for children's health [4] — engaging the Article 21 right to health.
• It earlier criticised FSSAI's reluctance to mandate warnings and asked whether it stemmed from industry pressure, raising the spectre of regulatory capture [4].
• FSSAI's compliance affidavit (August 2026) then proposed a red hexagonal warning label for foods high in two or more nutrients of concern — added sugar, added saturated fat, salt — with thresholds drawn from the ICMR-NIN Dietary Guidelines for Indians, 2024 [4][5].
• On 10 September 2026 the Bench of Justices Pardiwala and Vinod Chandran probed the scientific basis of the "high" thresholds [4]. Significantly, the Court reviewed the quality of evidence behind subordinate rule-making rather than substituting its own policy.

Judicial nudging has accelerated a stalled reform, but durable food-safety governance needs FSSAI to institutionalise transparent, ICMR-anchored threshold-setting and strengthen state-level enforcement capacity. A defensible, science-led label — still a proposal, not yet notified — would advance both consumers' right to information and India's SDG-3 commitment on non-communicable diseases.