New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Saturday constituted a five-member committee to examine a complaint that millions of passengers travelling by the Indian Railways were being provided with contaminated and unhygienic food.
A Division Bench of Justice M K Sharma and Reve Khetrapal ordered the committee to file a status report on the conditions within four weeks.
The committee would include two Railway officials, the petitioner advocate Varun Goswami besides the president and the secretary of the Delhi High Court Bar Association.
The Bench asked the counsel for the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation to provide all necessary assistance to the committee to inspect the canteens, catering and other food units maintained by the corporation for an on the spot assessment of the conditions.
The directions follows a PIL filed by two advocates - Varun Goswami and Shadman Ali who brought to the notice of the court the "unhygienic and pathetic" conditions under which the Railways was preparing and supplying food material to millions of passengers travelling by train and taking food at the railway stations across the country.
The petition cited instances like chapattis allegedly being rolled on the floor, body sweat of the cooks directly dripping into the food containers due to the absence of cooling and exhaust fans at the kitchens, non-segregation of vegetarian and non-vegetarian food and other such instances.
According to the petitioners, though a number of representations were made earlier to the authorities concerned, necessary action was not taken by the officials so far.
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