HYDERABAD, May 4: The health EDO has informed the Sindh High Court, Hyderabad circuit bench, that licences of manufacturers of Mainpuri and Gutka can be renewed only after a laboratory certifies samples of products are not injurious to consumers' health.

Additional Advocate General of Sindh Masood A. Noorani submitted para-wise comments of the EDO to the court here on Tuesday. The EDO proposed that petitioners could apply for fresh licenses with samples of their products which would be sent for chemical analysis.

He said that petitioners would have to complete legal formalities under provisions of the Pure Food Ordinance 1960 and pay Rs80,000 as fee for chemical analysis or their products.

Quoting previous orders of the court, the EDO pointed out that the court had imposed a ban on the sale of Mainpuri and Gutka. Referring to a report of a public analyst of food laboratory of Sindh government, the EDO said that he had declared ingredients of the products injurious to health and violative of sections 2 and 5 of the ordinance and rules 11 and 13 of the Pure Food Rules.

He said that the analyst's reports had left no doubt that above substances were not fit for human consumption. He said that petitioners, Mohammad Ilyas and Abrar Ahmed, had also filed similar petitions earlier, notwithstanding the fact that it was a settled law that successive petitions on same points by same parties were not maintainable, thus present petition should be dismissed.

The health official stated that the court had also earlier declined to lift the ban on processing and sale of Gutka and Mainpuri. He argued that the Mainpuri mafia had tried to cheat the court by placing a forged order purported to have been passed by the SHC on June 23,2003, lifting the ban, and added that on query, the registrar informed that it was a forged order.

He stated that petitioners could seek remedy from apex court as they could challenge earlier orders of the high court. He said that petitioners were seeking an immoral relief which, if allowed, would be tantamount to playing with public health.