“SAFE FOOD AND FOOD SAFETY IN INDIA: LEGISLATIVE BACKING AND ITS DISPUTE RESOLUTION MECHANISM. ROLE OF MEDIATION.”

Abstract

Food being the most basic unit and building block of life also collects the attention of all businesses. In process of producing and feeding the community and ultimately gaining profits out of it, companies and manufacturers often get involved in malpractices or different types of practices that are either prohibited or largely harmful to the consumers. Due to the importance that food holds in everybody’s life globally and locally; authorities at all level guarantee several rights to the consumers, the violation of which attract disputes among the food providers and the consumers. The consumers facing these disputes when move to the Indian Court of Law, have to go through different galleries of difficulties such as longer resolution period, high costs and various other technicalities. Mediation alternatively is a more consumer friendly, amicable, convenient, cheaper and faster process to get out of the dispute and with a comparatively more satisfactory outcome. This paper attempts to explain how the rights of a food consumer gets violated and what approach the consumer can take to get an effective resolution of the same with the help of Mediation. The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 has dedicated a complete section to Mediation and the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Government of India has this year itself launched its Consumer Handbook on Mediation that in details covers all the aspects of Mediation. This in itself signifies the importance and scope of Mediation in consumer dispute redressal matters. The paper has tried to elaborate the same further.