The Maharashtra government, through its Food Safety Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe, recently approached the Bombay High Court against the Central Health Ministry and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), alleging that the central regulator has unlawfully set up a parallel enforcement system.

The commissioner claimed this “usurped” the state body’s powers and prevented it from enforcing the Food Safety and Standards (FSS) Act, 2006, by restricting state authorities from entering or sampling from food business premises operating under a ‘Central License’.

1. Does the dispute reflect a tension in the division of power over matters of monitoring food safety between the centre and states?

2. To what extent does the constitutional distribution of legislative and administrative powers affect the autonomy of states?

3. Does Parliament’s supremacy over the matters in the Concurrent List constrain the legislative autonomy of states?

4.…