A case was lodged against Nestle India at an Uttar Pradesh court on Saturday over the safety standards of its Maggi noodles, and another against actors Amitabh Bachchan, Preity Zinta and Madhuri Dixit for featuring in the brand's allegedly misleading advertisements.
The district administration lodged the case against Nestle in a court in Barabanki, 50km from here, after state food inspectors had seized and tested Maggi samples from a local store.
A local lawyer lodged a separate case against the actors for promoting the product as healthy. The Food Safety and Standards Act of India, 2006, stipulates a Rs 10-lakh fine for participating in misleading ads, sources said.
Barabanki food safety officer V.K. Pandey said that tests had revealed monosodium glutamate and lead beyond permissible limits in the seized samples. He said that officials of companies selling unsafe food could be jailed for six months under the 2006 act.
Nestle had not issued any statement till last evening.
Apart from Nestle India, the accused in the first case include the company's Nangal Kalan Industrial Area unit at Haroli in Himachal Pradesh; an Easy Day store in Barabanki; the Delhi-based parent firm Easy Day and its FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) managers Mohan Gupta and Shabab Alam.
About 10 days ago, state food inspectors had ordered Nestle to recall from shops countrywide the particular batch of Maggi from which the samples had been tested.
A Nestle spokesperson had said the packets from the batch, dating to March 2014, had either been consumed or were past the sell-by date.
