Food Safety Act | Junior Analyst (Food) Is Distinct Post From Food Analyst; State Can Prescribe Its Qualifications: Allahabad High Court

The Allahabad High Court has held that the post of Junior Analyst (Food) in the State service cadre is distinct from the post of Food Analyst under Section 45 of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006. It held that the State Government is competent to prescribe the academic qualification for it.

Holding that no question of repugnancy arose, the Court upheld Rule 8(2) of the Uttar Pradesh Food Safety and Drug Administration Department Analysts (Food and Drug Laboratory) Service Rules, 2017, as amended by the First Amendment Rules, 2020, as intra vires.

Section 45 of the Act of 2006 empowers the Commissioner of Food Safety to appoint persons holding the qualification prescribed by the Central Government as Food Analysts. Rule 2.1.4 of the Food Safety and Standards Rules, 2011 prescribes that qualification and further requires a person to be declared qualified for the post by a Board appointed and notified by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India.

The bench of Justice Alok Mathur and Justice Amitabh Kumar Rai held,

“The mere fact that both appointments are associated with food analysis or function within a food-testing establishment does not render their respective legal fields identical. Identity of the field cannot be inferred merely from a factual or functional overlap, the relevant enquiry is whether the provisions regulate the same legal relationship and impose commands which are incapable of simultaneous obedience.”

Petitioners challenged the vires of Rule 8(2) and paragraph 6 of Advertisement No. 4/2024 dated 21.02.2024, issued by the U.P. Subordinate Services Selection Commission for 417 posts of Junior Analyst (Food), which confined eligibility to a Master's Degree in Chemistry, Biochemistry, Microbiology, Dairy Chemistry, Food Technology and Nutrition, or a degree in Veterinary Sciences.

The unamended Rules of 2017 had permitted a Bachelor's Degree in Science with Chemistry, or in Food Technology, but by notification dated 07.08.2020 the State raised the requirement to a Master's Degree, retaining a Bachelor's Degree only in Veterinary Science. Petitioners sought a direction that a B.Tech. in Food Technology, Dairy Technology, Oil Technology and Biotechnology be treated as eligible.

It was argued that once the Central Government has fixed the qualification for the post of Food Analyst in rules framed under Section 91 of the Act of 2006, the State cannot adopt a different criterion, and that Rule 8(2) was therefore hit by Article 254 of the Constitution. Reliance was placed on Chandra Shekhar Singh & Others v. State of Jharkhand & Others, where the Supreme Court held the State's power in relation to Food Safety Officers to be confined to formulating modalities for their functions, and on Ashish Tyagi and 7 Others v. State of U.P. and Others, which declared State rules prescribing qualifications for Drug Inspectors ultra vires for not conforming to the central rules.

The State submitted that the posts of Junior Analyst (Food) and Senior Analyst (Food) pre-dated the Act of 2006, and that the Rules of 2017 were framed under the proviso to Article 309 of the Constitution and not under the Act of 2006, which is not an exhaustive service code. It was further objected, relying on Tajvir Singh Sodhi and Others v. State of Jammu and Kashmir and Others, that the petitioners had applied and sat the written examination without protest, and could not challenge the eligibility condition once it operated against them.

The Court observed that the Rules of 2017 contain no post of Food Analyst at all. It noted the State's position that a Junior Analyst (Food) merely carries out the analysis of food articles while the report of analysis is made by the Food Analyst, and that a Junior Analyst is assigned the additional duties of a Food Analyst only on being declared qualified by the Board of the FSSAI, which requires qualifying the Junior Analyst examination and, after three years' experience, a practical examination available only once in a lifetime.

Holding the two posts to be distinct, the Court held that Rule 8(2) and the central framework each operate in their own field and are capable of surviving without the other, so that the question of repugnancy did not arise. It relied on West U.P. Sugar Mills Association and Others v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Others and Md. Firoz Mansuri and Others v. State of Bihar and Others, where repugnancy was held to arise only on actual conflict, and not merely because the State exercises power in an allied field.

The Court further held that the State had in fact adopted one of the alternative minimum qualifications set out in Rule 2.1.4, namely those relating to a Master's Degree, and that leaving out the other alternatives could not be read as derogation from the central rule.

On the grievance that a B.Tech. ought also to have been included, the Court held that this went to the expediency and utility of adding further technical qualifications, a matter for the State as employer and rule-making authority, and that granting the relief would require the Court to rewrite the Service Rule.

“Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India do not require the State to include every academic qualification which may have some broad or remote connection with the subject matter of the post. The constitutional requirement is of a rational nexus and not exhaustive inclusion of all potentially relevant degrees.”

The Court, however, rejected the objection founded on the petitioners' participation in the selection, holding that the challenge went to the eligibility prescribed for the post itself.

“the participation of the petitioners in the selection process was without any meaning, as they did not possess the qualifications required for the post in question itself and their participation in the selection process, therefore, has no bearing.”

Accordingly, holding Rule 8(2) of the Rules of 2017 (as amended by the Rules of 2020) to be intra vires, the Court dismissed the writ petition.