KARACHI: The Sindh High Court came down hard on the Sindh Food Authority (SFA) for its failure to set out quality standards with regard to edible oil.

A two-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M. Shaikh asked SFA director general Agha Sohail Ahmed and other officials whether the authority had any mechanism to check the quality of various kind of loose edible oil including Iranian cooking oil being sold in the city.

The bench was hearing two petitions, one filed by a citizen against sale of loose, substandard and smuggled cooking oil and second filed by retailers of loose edible oil challenging the vires of the SFA Act, 2016 and the authority’s powers to seal their warehouses.

The court order stated that at the outset of the hearing Additional Advocate General Zeeshan Adhi candidly stated that as per some rulings of the apex court, the SFA has no power to seal any premises.

Orders SFA to unseal warehouses of retailers of loose edible oil

“The counsel for SFA is not in a position to controvert this position so as to show that the power subsisted. Furthermore, neither he [counsel for SFA] nor the functionaries of the Authority in attendance today are able to show what quality standards, if any, have been devised in relation to edible oil”, the bench stated in the order.

Under such circumstances, the bench stated that the SFA was being directed to unseal the premises of the petitioners.

However, it said that the SFA might exercise all other powers vested in it for the purpose of the impugned notification subject to the final outcome of the petition.

The bench put off the hearing till Oct 10 and directed the SFA chief and other officials to ensure their presence on the next hearing.

On the last hearing, the SHC had directed edible oil distributors to submit details of edible oil purchase from certified factories and other relevant trade documents.

Barrister Sarmad Khan Azad and other counsel for petitioners contended that they had obtained oil and ghee from licensed companies, which were certified and cleared by the Pakistan Standard Quality Control Authority, and the respondents had themselves issued valid licences to them for manufacturing, selling and distributing such edible oil and ghee.

The lawyer for the SFA argued that warehouses were sealed over the selling of loose cooking oil and ghee without giving proper details of manufacturing companies.

Earlier, the SFA had informed the SHC that the loose and smuggled oil was being sold in Karachi and added that its scientific panel meeting had banned such a sale in 2018.

It also claimed that the authority had been carrying out raids against loose, substandard and smuggled cooking oil and lodging cases and sealing the warehouses.

In January, a citizen petitioned the SHC against the sale of loose, substandard and smuggled cooking oil in the city and pleaded to ban such oil.

Another petitioner, the retailers of loose oil, also approached the SHC in June and challenged the vires of the SFA Act, arguing that the SFA officers had no authority to seal the warehouses.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2022