Food safety officer from health minister’s home town absconding; absent from 64 days; department yet to take action
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ January 9,2024
In a bizarre incident, an officer of health department from state health minister’s home town has not been suspended, no charge sheet has been issued and no action has been taken even after 64 days of lodging an FIR for misconduct, remaining absent from duty.
The Patiala police on November 6,2023 had booked Sandeep Singh, a food safety officer (FSO) and owner of the RK Milk Chilling Centre, Rajinder Kumar on the complaint of the health department over the disappearance of 400kg of ‘spurious’ paneer that was seized during a raid.
Both, FSO Sandeep Singh and Rajinder Kumar were booked under section 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servants) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and under section 272 (Whoever adulterates any article of food or drink, so as to make such article noxious as food or drink, intending to sell such article as food or drink, or knowing it to be likely that the same will be sold as food or drink) of the IPC.
“It seems that both police and health department are avoiding taking action against the absconding food and safety officer Sandeep Singh. Patiala police has yet to arrest the Food Safety Officer Sandeep Singh and health department failed to take action against him for remaining absent from duty, dereliction of duty against him” said an officer on the condition of anonymity.
When contacted the state health minister Dr Balbir Singh, he said” whenever he (Sandeep Singh, food safety officer) is arrested, he will be suspended within 48 hours as per rules.” When questioned why health department is not taking any action against him for remaining absent from duty for the last 64 days , ordered an enquiry and lodging of FIR against him, he said “the department is taking action. The health secretary is not feeling well these days and is on leave. Whenever he joins, he will put up the file to me and I’ll look into this.”
About the case
On a tip off, a team led by the Dr Vijay Singh, District Health Officer (DHO) had conducted a raid at RK Chilling Centre on November, 6 and sealed 500 kg of paneer, 15 litres of oil and 15 kg of skimmed milk powder. After the raid, the health department had taken the samples and sealed the 400 kg spurious paneer. Later, the report of samples received on November 10 from a government laboratory stated that paneer was substandard and skimmed milk unsafe for human consumption.
As per the FIR, the owner of the milk chilling centre, as per the protocol, was given the option to get the samples checked from another government lab, but he refused to get the samples tested again. When the health department decided to destroy the seized food items, surprisingly, only 100 kg, out of the total 500kg of sealed paneer, were found by the district health officer (DHO).
The DHO immediately wrote to the Patiala SSP to take necessary action against the food safety officer and owner of the milk chilling centre. Since then the FSO is absconding and as per available information his anticipatory bail has also been rejected.
As per avaialble information, the local civil surgeon office has also informed the same to department’s higher authorities.
