 September 22, 2003 |
Government seeks dismissal of
Pepsi’s case
New Delhi, September 22, 2003: The Union
government today filed an affidavit in Delhi High Court in response to PepsiCo’s
petition, filed on August 8 this year following the Centre for Science and
Environment’s (CSE) detection of pesticide residues in soft drink samples. In its
affidavit, the government sought the dismissal of PepsiCo’s petition, which it said
was "highly frivolous, vexatious, vague and baseless… merely to attract media
attention". The case has been listed for October 28, 2003 for further directions.
It may be recalled that in its petition, PepsiCo had
requested the Court to restrain CSE from publishing its findings or putting its report in
the public domain. The company had also sought the Court’s intervention in directing
the government to determine the "correctness and veracity" of CSE’s report.
In its ruling, the Court had directed the government to conduct independent tests of soft
drinks in laboratories of its choice and make the findings available to the Court in three
weeks’ time.
The government response today informed the Court of
independent tests of soft drink samples conducted by its two laboratories at Mysore and
Kolkata. While it pointed out that the levels of residues found by these tests differed
from those detected by CSE, the affidavit also noted that Pepsi’s assertion that its
products fell within EU norms was not proved to be correct for all its samples. The Court
was also apprised of the formation of a Joint Parliamentary Committee to examine the
matter further.
The Ministry of Defence’s Canteen Stores Department
(CSD), the second respondents in the case also filed its affidavit, asking for dismissal
of the case with costs. PepsiCo had challenged the CSD’s decision to cancel orders of
its products following the release of the CSE report. Submitting that PepsiCo moved Court
without giving it any intimation, CSD said in its response that the company itself
appeared to be bent on a ‘trial by media’.
If you have questions, e-mail us at media@cseindia.org or contact Souparno Banerjee on
29955124, 29955125, 29956394 or 29956401. |
