New Delhi, May 29 -- The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought the Centre's response on a petition to strengthen the regulatory framework under the Food Safety and Standards Act, citing structural deficiencies in the existing mechanism characterised by unreasonably low penalties, inadequate testing labs, manpower shortages, and defaults in the licensing process. A bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta issued notice on a petition filed by Mumbai-based doctor Aniruddha Narayan Malpani and sought responses from the Union health ministry, Consumer Affairs Ministry, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), and the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India within four weeks. Advocate Aishwarya Sinha who argued the petition stated that the effective functioning of FSSAI is directly linked to the health and welfare of citizens under Article 21 of the Constitution. He pointed out that the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 was enacted with this objective but it has inherent deficiencies that render the statutory food safety regime ineffective in its enforcement. Referring to the penalties prescribed under the Act, the petition said, "The maximum penalty prescribed is only Rs.5 lakh for sub-standard food under section 51 of the 2006 Act and Rs.3 lakh for misbranding under section 52 of the Act - amounts that are wholly insignificant when viewed against the multi-billion-dollar turnovers of large corporations." Malpani said that such amounts are "mere peanuts" for major industry players. He said that in a system where economic gains from non-compliance far outweigh the eventual financial liability, penal provisions fail to act as a deterrent. The CAG audit of 2017 discovered that even the levied penalties have not been fully recovered by the authorities. He suggested the court direct a turnover-linked or proportionate penalty framework that does not treat vastly unequal businesses to similar penalties. The petition highlighted recent instances of adulterated milk, spices, paneer and similar daily food products found to contain carcinogenic dyes and excessive pesticides, pointing to a larger issue of inadequate testing labs still employing traditional methods to detect chemicals in foods. The petition said, "A critical meta-analysis by the FSSAI in 2019 revealed a staggering infrastructure deficit of over 700 laboratories needed to monitor the country's food business operators (FBOs) effectively. While there has been some improvement in physical infrastructure over the years, the numbers remain insufficient to meet the demand." It points out that the FSSAI-notified labs use basic spectrophotometric or titration methods which cannot trace pesticides and the genetically modified elements....