Introduction
In February-March 2026, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) launched its nationwide ‘Holi Anti Adulteration Drive’, an initiative aimed at limiting the widespread adulteration of dairy products during the festive season. This drive lead to the seizure of 1,400 kg of khoya in Jhansi and synthetic paneer at the Jewar Toll Plaza. Such drives highlighted the persistence of dairy adulteration in India and how circulation of chemically altered food products poses major public health risks. However, beyond these enforcement actions lies an important concern. Do such enforcement drives demonstrate regulatory success or do they expose deeper failures in India’s food safety enforcement regime under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006? This blog argues that while the 2026 drive demonstrates FSSAI’s operational capacity, it also reveals weaknesses in the framework, ranging from statutory ambiguity between sub-standard and unsafe food classifications to evidentiary challenges in prosecution and systematic gaps in supply chains.
Raids, Optics and Limits of Deterrence
Adulteration in India's dairy sector has been an issue for a long time with particularly high incidences during festivals when the demand for products such as khoya, paneer and ghee, is very high. On February 19, 2026, the FSSAI directed the State Food Safety Commissioners to intensify sampling and surveillance of milk and milk products across the country. Enforcement teams were also told to carry out targeted inspections, set up mobile food testing labs and upload their inspection results via the national Food Safety Compliance System (FoSCoS). The enforcement outcomes appeared significant. Authorities seized consignments of adulterated dairy across several northern states, including fungus contaminated khoya seized in Jhansi and synthetic paneer intercepted at the Yamuna Expressway corridor. Mobile lab tests found substances such as starch, urea and other harmful adulterants used to alter milk solids in synthetic dairy products.
While such raids create a strong public perception of state action, enforcement management often hide deeper structural weaknesses in the food safety framework. The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 was enacted to consolidate India’s fragmented food safety laws and build a unified framework. Yet in practice, there remains a broken link between the enforcement raids and the actual conviction rates. A major reason lies in the Act’s distinction between “sub-standard” and “unsafe” food. This distinction, while being principally necessary, actually weakens the preventive value of food safety enforcement.
Statutory Ambiguity Between Section 51 and Section 59
The FSSA creates a graded enforcement framework for different categories of food safety violations. Section 51 of the FSSA 2006 imposes a monetary penalty for selling “sub-standard food,” with fine that may extend up to 5 lakh rupees. By contrast, Section 59 of the Act provides criminal punishment, even imprisonment, for manufacturing and selling “unsafe food” that threatens public health. Consequently, adulteration involving toxic substances such as detergent, urea or even synthetic chemicals should fall within the category of unsafe food, which automatically triggers the penal consequences under Section 59. However, the current enforcement practises tell a different story. Many dairy adulteration cases detected during inspection drives are booked under Section 51, which treats the violation as an offence punishable only by a fine. The result is hence a diluted deterrence framework. If adulteration involving chemical additives or synthetic ingredients is normally categorised as a “sub-standard food” offence, offenders face only financial penalties rather than strict criminal liability for matters involving public health. For organised adulteration networks operating at large scales during festive seasons, such penalties may simply be absorbed as a cost of doing business.
The Supreme Court has further clarified the importance of the FSSA in prosecuting food adulteration offences. In Ram Nath v State of Uttar Pradesh (2024) INSC 138 the Court ruled that Section 89, FSSA grants the Act an overriding effect over other laws, including Sections 272 and 273 of the Indian Penal Code (replaced by BNS). The FSSA functions as a primary and comprehensive framework governing food safety offence in India. This clarity improves regulatory consistency but it also means that the effectiveness of enforcement now depends on how the regulators interpret and apply provisions of the FSSA, especially Sections 51 and 59.
Burden of Proof and the Problem of Natural Variance
Another major hindrance in food adulteration prosecutions arises from evidentiary requirements imposed by courts which often prioritize procedural technicalities, leading to frequent acquittals. These requirements create a high burden of proof for the prosecution. Simply showing that a food product is not up to prescribed standards is not enough for the prosecution; often, the prosecution is required to prove the intentional adulteration or culpable conduct of the accused. In Pancham Singh Chauhan v State of Uttar Pradesh (2025) ALL 4260, the Allahabad High Court set aside a conviction of the lower court where low fat content in paneer may be due to the natural composition of milk and not the result of deliberate adulteration. The court stated that the prosecution had not proven the adulteration beyond a reasonable doubt, hence, the accused deserved the benefit of doubt.
This doctrinal principle creates a significant evidentiary challenge for enforcement authorities in cases arising from large-scale seizures operations. For instance, during the 2026 Holi raids, authorities reportedly destroyed large quantities of seized paneer and khoya on site after collecting limited samples for laboratory analysis. Though discarding adulterated food can be quite reasonable from a perspective of protecting the public instantly, it might also lead to reducing the effectiveness of evidence in the following criminal case. It is not unusual for defence to claim that the small sample retained for laboratory tests is not indicative of the whole batch of goods. Chain of custody is a detailed record of the evidence from the time it is collected until it is presented in court. It ensures the evidence wasn't changed in any way. Without a proper chain of custody and independent testing, proving “intent to adulterate” beyond reasonable doubt becomes difficult.
Procedural Gaps and the Chain of Custody Problem
One of the consistent problems pointed out by the 2026 enforcement exercise in the dairy sector was the challenge of figuring out the primary source of adulterated products. A lot of the confiscations during the Holi crackdown happened while the dairy shipments were being transported, on roads like the Yamuna Expressway. Law enforcement officers target transport vehicles carrying bulk dairy products intended for urban markets. However, prosecuting the transporter alone rarely satisfies the statutory framework of liability under the FSSA. The Act places primary responsibility on manufacturers, distributors and sellers who introduce unsafe food into the supply chain. Where enforcement agencies cannot identify the organising dairy facility or processing unit, the prosecution often fails to establish a complete chain of custody linking the adulterated product to its source. In such cases, the failure to identify the origin source prevents the prosecution from proving beyond a reasonable doubt who was responsible for the adulteration, often leading to acquittals based on lack of evidence. Such enforcement gap is particularly pronounced in India’s informal dairy supply chains, where bulk dairy products frequently move through multiple intermediaries before reaching retail markets. Transporters may claim they were merely carrying sealed consignments, while wholesalers may deny knowledge of adulteration. One potential solution lies in the adoption of digital batch tracking mechanisms for bulk dairy products such as khoya and paneer. It is possible that such a system would force dairy processors to produce traceable batch codes that are connected to transport records and distribution logs, in a similar manner to the traceability frameworks that are currently being used in pharmaceutical supply chains. If these changes are not made, enforcement will be focused more on making visible seizures rather than comprehensive accountability.
Conclusion
The 2026 Holi anti-adulteration drive highlights the enforcement capacity of the FSSAI, but it also brings out deeper structural weaknesses in India’s food safety framework. While large-scale seizures help reduce immediate risks to public health, they are not enough on their own. What is needed is a shift from short-term measures to a more consistent enforcement. The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 provides for preventive regulation through monitoring and action against unsafe food. However, in practice, the focus must move beyond seizure and destruction of adulterated food to identifying its source, ensuring effective prosecution and taking stronger action against such offenders within the dairy supply chain.