Delhi HC Issues Notice in Plea Challenging New Regulations On Packaging And Labelling Under The Insecticide Rules of 2020

The Division Bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan has issued notice to the Central Government.

Filed by Crop Life India (CLI), the petition seeks to challenge the Insecticide (Second Amendment) Rules, 2020, by terming the amended rules as impossible to implement, impractical, and non-ecofriendly.

The Petitioner has argued that the amended rules have laid impracticable guidelines for packaging and labelling of insecticides which may lead to deceptive packaging. It says:

'The amendments require the manufacturers of ultra-small (less than 50 gms/ml) and small packs (50 to 250 gms/ml) to provide information under as many as 14 heads. This information is to be provided in English and Hindi and in a minimum font size of 5 for English and 6 for Hindi respectively. Thus, the manufacturer is expected to do an impossible exercise of accommodating so much content in two languages and specified font size on the label of even a tiny, 5-10 gm/ml pack.'

It is further argued by the Petitioner that the implementation of the amended rules would result in recalling of several tonnes of insecticides that are otherwise within their expiry date and fit for use.

'This would not only lead to losses of thousands of crores to the industry but would also make it challenging to dispose of such a huge quantity of unused insecticides', the Petitioner argues.

Petitioner has also called the said amended rules 'arbitrary' and 'unreasonable' as they have provided extremely brief period of time for implementing the revised guidelines.