A criminal prosecution built on a laboratory report is only as strong as the laboratory. In Dharmendra Hansraj Kotak v. State of Delhi, CRL.M.C. 7013/2022 with CRL.M.C. 328/2023, decided on 6 August 2026, the Delhi High Court quashed prosecutions arising out of the 2015 Maggi noodles controversy, along with the summoning orders of 6 November 2015 and 11 January 2016. Justice Madhu Jain held that once superior-court scrutiny and fresh testing by the statutory referral laboratory had undermined the analyst reports on which the complaints rested, permitting the prosecutions to continue would serve no useful purpose.
The prosecutions
The petitions concerned complaints under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 arising from samples of Maggi noodles collected in May 2015, at the height of a nationwide controversy. The Delhi Food Laboratory reported lead content in the masala tastemaker beyond the permissible limit of 2.5 parts per million, and one complaint additionally alleged misbranding in relation to the declaration concerning monosodium glutamate. On those reports, complaints were instituted invoking the Act's provisions on unsafe food and misbranding, and the trial court issued summoning orders on 6 November 2015 and 11 January 2016.
The petitioners — persons arrayed as being responsible for the conduct of the company's business — sought quashing of the complaints and all consequential proceedings.
Why the foundation had eroded
Justice Madhu Jain identified three developments, each the product of judicial scrutiny in the intervening decade, which together had hollowed out the prosecution case.
The laboratory's status
The state laboratory that furnished the founding reports lacked NABL accreditation and had not been notified as required under Section 43 of the FSSA at the time of testing. The Bombay High Court, in the connected litigation of 2015, had held that testing must come from a laboratory holding both credentials.
The referral laboratory's findings
Pursuant to the Supreme Court's direction in the civil proceedings, fresh testing was carried out at the Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysuru — the statutory referral laboratory. Its reports found the lead content within permissible limits, contradicting the original analysis.
The passage of scrutiny
The controversy had by then travelled through the superior courts, and the scientific basis of the 2015 reports had not survived that examination. What remained was a prosecution resting on discredited documents.
The legal test applied
The judgment proceeds on the settled principles governing the quashing of criminal proceedings: the categories illustrated in State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal, 1992 Supp (1) SCC 335, and the approach in Rajiv Thapar v. Madan Lal Kapoor, (2013) 3 SCC 330, under which a High Court may act on material of sterling quality that would irresistibly lead to acquittal, so that continuation of the trial would be an abuse of the process of the court. The Court concluded that permitting the prosecutions to continue would serve no useful purpose, and quashed the complaints, the summoning orders and all consequential proceedings.
The inherent power invoked in such petitions was found in Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and is now located in Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023. The principles governing its exercise are unchanged: it is a power to prevent abuse of process and secure the ends of justice, exercised sparingly and not as a substitute for trial.
What the case teaches about food safety prosecutions
Prosecutions under the FSSA are distinctive in that the central witness is usually a document — the food analyst's report. The statute itself recognises the fallibility of a single analysis and builds in a corrective: the person from whom the sample is taken may require that the counterpart sample be analysed by a referral laboratory, whose report then supersedes the analyst's. Two consequences follow for practice.
| Point in time | What matters |
|---|---|
| At sampling | Compliance with the statutory sampling procedure, preservation of counterpart samples, and the chain of custody. Defects here are frequently outcome-determinative years later. |
| On receipt of the report | The accreditation and notification status of the testing laboratory, and timely exercise of the right to referral-laboratory analysis. Delay can forfeit the remedy because samples deteriorate. |
| At the summoning stage | Whether the complaint is within limitation, whether the persons summoned are properly identified as responsible for the conduct of the business, and whether the founding report can lawfully support cognizance. |
The broader principle
The decision is not a special dispensation for a well-known brand; it is an application of a general principle with reach across regulatory prosecutions — drugs, weights and measures, environment, and food alike. Where the scientific document at the foundation of a criminal case is shown, through the statute's own corrective machinery or through judicial scrutiny, to be unreliable, the case does not limp on to an inevitable acquittal a decade hence. The High Court's inherent power exists precisely so that the process of the criminal court is not itself converted into a punishment.
For food business operators, the practical lesson lies in the early stages: the accreditation of the laboratory, the counterpart sample, and the referral remedy are not technicalities but the substance of the defence. For complainant authorities, the lesson is the mirror image — a prosecution launched on a report that cannot withstand the statute's own verification mechanism is a prosecution built on sand.
Frequently Asked Questions
What were the Maggi prosecutions about?
In May 2015, samples of Maggi noodles were collected and Delhi Food Laboratory reports alleged lead content beyond the permissible limit of 2.5 ppm in the tastemaker, and in one case misbranding relating to the declaration of monosodium glutamate. Complaints followed under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, and summoning orders were issued in late 2015 and early 2016.
Why were the prosecutions quashed a decade later?
The evidentiary foundation had eroded. The testing laboratory lacked NABL accreditation and notification under Section 43 of the FSSA at the relevant time, and fresh testing at the Central Food Technological Research Institute, the statutory referral laboratory, found the lead content within permissible limits. With the founding reports discredited, continuation of the trials would have been an exercise without purpose.
Can a criminal case be quashed because the evidence has weakened?
Ordinarily the strength of evidence is tested at trial, not in quashing proceedings. But where material of sterling and unimpeachable quality shows that the prosecution cannot succeed, or where its very foundation has been judicially discredited, the High Court may intervene under its inherent powers, now under Section 528 of the BNSS, to prevent abuse of process — the principles associated with State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal and Rajiv Thapar v. Madan Lal Kapoor.
What should a food business operator do on receiving an adverse analyst report?
The Food Safety and Standards Act itself provides the remedy: the operator may, within the statutory period, require that the second part of the sample be sent to a referral laboratory, whose report supersedes that of the food analyst. Timely exercise of that right, and scrutiny of the laboratory's accreditation and notification, are often decisive, as this litigation shows.