Plea in Guj HC against mandatory warning on betel nut products

A trader has moved the Gujarat High Court, seeking that betel nuts (supari) should be declared as not injurious to health.
City-based H M Products, the petitioner, has challenged a regulation introduced by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India which makes it mandatory to put a label on betel nut products warning the consumer that chewing betel-nut is injurious to health.
Contending that betel nut in itself is not harmful, petition argues that manufacturers of supari-based products should not be treated on par with those of tobacco-based products, who have to fix such a warning label.
The division bench of Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J B Pardiwala, after hearing the primary submissions by petitioner's lawyer Sanjay Gupta, directed him to produce scientific evidence to support the claim and fixed the next hearing for August 23.