Summary
In an Indian Express Idea Exchange interview, Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe, a 2005-batch IAS officer who took charge in May 2026, defended his aggressive enforcement of food and drug safety law.
His actions include invoking the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act against gutka networks, enforcing a ban on foods high in fat, salt and sugar within 50 metres of schools and suspending licences without prior warning.
He said the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 allows an officer to suspend a licence immediately when public health is at risk, with written reasons. Critics and a High Court bench in the Goras Bhandar case, have questioned whether such closures are proportionate when the violation could be corrected.
The case turns on a core public-administration dilemma: rigorous enforcement versus proportionality and natural justice.
WHY IT MATTERS FOR UPSC & STATE PCS
Maharashtra FDA Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe defended his strict enforcement - including immediate licence suspensions and the closure of the Goras Bhandar dairy - in an Indian Express Idea Exchange interview published on 19 October 2026, amid questions on proportionality and the limits of regulatory power.
Standard News
The Law Gave Him Two Tools. The Ethics Lies in Choosing Between Them
Imagine you are the officer at the counter. The shop has served the town for decades. You find soil floors, industrial ice in the buttermilk, plastic in a batch and ghee without manufacturing or expiry dates - the violations Maharashtra FDA Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe said were found at Goras Bhandar.
You can write an improvement notice or you can suspend the licence today. Both are legal. Neither is costless. The easy answer would be to call this law versus leniency. But it isn't.
What the
law actually says Section 32 of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 makes the improvement notice the normal route: tell the operator what is wrong and give time to fix it. Its proviso allows a designated officer to suspend a licence forthwith in the interest of public health, for reasons recorded in writing.
Mundhe relies on that proviso and says every suspension order records its reasons. So the question is not whether he may suspend. It is when the facts justify the harsher tool.
Why both choices hurt Shut it today and you protect every customer who might buy contaminated buttermilk tomorrow.
But you also cut the income of the owner and workers and close a business for faults that, as a High Court bench noted, might have been addressed by discarding the contaminated product. Issue a notice and you respect the doctrine of proportionality
- action no harsher than the harm requires - affirmed by the Supreme Court in Om Kumar (2000). But you leave a window in which unsafe food may still be sold. Mundhe's question in the interview is not rhetorical: what is more humane, protecting many consumers or letting unsafe food reach them? Courts have drawn this line before. In 2015, the Bombay High Court set aside FSSAI's nationwide Maggi ban because it was imposed without a proper hearing - not because food safety did not matter.
The resolution Here is the decision I would defend:
suspend the unsafe product immediately, not the whole business
- seize and destroy the buttermilk, stop the use of industrial ice - and issue an improvement notice with a short, enforced deadline for structural defects like the flooring. If the deadline is missed, suspend the licence. What is sacrificed is real. There is a brief window of risk and some deterrent force is lost, because an inspector's ability to close a famous shop is a powerful signal to every other kitchen.
The deeper problem Mundhe said Maharashtra needed about 850 food safety officers but had 350 sanctioned posts.
When inspections are rare, every visit must carry maximum force - which pushes officers towards shutters over notices. Good regulation should not depend on one officer's zeal.
Quick Facts
Key numbers & takeaways — revise these first
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Tukaram Mundhe, a 2005-batch IAS officer, became Commissioner of the Maharashtra FDA in May 2026.
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Food safety in India is governed by the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, implemented under FSSAI.
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Section 32 of the FSS Act provides for improvement notices before action.
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Its proviso allows a designated officer to suspend a licence immediately in the interest of public health, with reasons recorded in writing.
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FSSAI's 2020 school regulations bar the sale of foods high in fat, salt and sugar within 50 metres of school gates.
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Maharashtra FDA invoked the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act against gutka manufacture, sale and transport.
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Mundhe said Maharashtra needed about 850 food safety officers against 350 sanctioned posts.
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In Om Kumar v. Union of India (2000), the Supreme Court adopted the doctrine of proportionality in administrative law.
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In 2015 the Bombay High Court set aside FSSAI's nationwide ban on Maggi noodles for breach of natural justice.
Connect the dots for your UPSC preparation.
Standard news covers the event. Log in to read our comprehensive analysis and uncover the hidden constitutional, structural, and ethical dimensions of this topic:
A worked application of the four-step proportionality test to the Goras Bhandar facts - legitimate aim, suitability, necessity and balance.
The deontological case for Mundhe's approach set against the consequentialist cost to livelihoods, with neither side treated as a straw man.
How the Maggi ruling of 2015 and Om Kumar (2000) set the limits for emergency food safety action.
A systemic fix for a regulator running on 350 officers instead of 850, so enforcement does not depend on one person's mission mode.
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