Rs 2 lakh food-safety fine in a tobacco case set aside nine years later
In November 2017 Guntur's joint collector fined a Macherla man Rs 2 lakh under the food-safety law; on appeal the fine was cut to Rs 70,000. On 6 August 2026 the High Court set both orders aside, applying its settled view that chewing tobacco and khaini are not 'food', so the food-safety law cannot be used to punish trade in them.
This page records what the cited court records say happened. Findings belong to the court or authority that made them; this register adds none of its own. Names of private individuals are withheld unless a naming gate clears them.
How we verify →Penalty set aside on 6 August 2026, nearly nine years after it was imposed.
What happened
The High Court recorded that on 16 November 2017 the Joint Collector-cum-Adjudicating Officer, Guntur, imposed a penalty of Rs 2,00,000 on the petitioner under section 96 of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006. On appeal, the Principal District and Sessions Judge, Guntur, reduced it to Rs 70,000 on 30 January 2019.
The petitioner's counsel relied on earlier High Court rulings that chewing tobacco and khaini are not food within the Act, and that trade in tobacco is governed by the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003, not the food-safety law. One of those rulings, quoted in the order, notes that 'the trade in Tobacco is not impermissible in India'.
Justice Y. Lakshmana Rao held that, 'in view of the constant view taken by this Court', the Sessions judgment and the collector's order were 'liable to be interfered and set aside', and set both aside on 6 August 2026.
The rule the High Court applied
“chewing tobacco and khaini are not the food within the definition of Section 3(j) of 'the Act.,' and the manufacture, sale or exposing for sale of tobacco etc., is governed by the provisions of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003”
Crl.R.C. No. 210 of 2019, order dated 6 August 2026, para 4 (recording an earlier order of the High Court) — read the full text
A fine for a lawful trade
Tobacco is a legal product in India. The man was fined under a law the High Court has repeatedly held does not apply to it, and it took nine years and three levels of adjudication to undo.
What we could not confirm
The order does not describe the goods or the conduct that was penalised. That the case concerned tobacco products follows from the ground on which the High Court decided it. Macherla is now in Palnadu district; the order refers to Guntur district.