Karnataka’s food safety regulator has ordered the suspension of the food licences held by Amazon, Swiggy Instamart and BigBasket, after finding that the three platforms listed and sold “toxic” datura fruits and seeds.
The order passed on Monday directs the designated officers handling central and state licences to suspend the platforms’ food licences until further orders and to submit a compliance report forthwith. Revocation will be taken up separately after the parties are given a hearing, the order says.
The department has also ordered the immediate suspension of the licences and registrations of the establishments and sellers supplying datura to the three platforms.
During its inspection, packets containing datura fruits and seeds were found carrying food licence and registration numbers, and stock was being aggregated in godowns before being sold and distributed through the platforms, the order states.
The action was triggered by a social media complaint on datura fruit that Instamart had sent free with an order, health minister UT Khader told FE.
“Datura fruit which is poisonous was sold by Instamart as a free gift along with an order. It had a wrong label of FSSAI approved on it. A child has consumed this fruit. This triggered us to investigate and take action against all such platforms selling such items,” Khader said.
Swiggy, Amazon and BigBasket did respond to a request for comments till the time of going to press.
Representatives of the three platforms appeared before the adjudicating authority on Monday. Amazon filed no reply. Swiggy Instamart produced no documents on the action taken against the show-cause notice and sought more time.
BigBasket told the authority it had stopped the sale, and said it would correct its listing and print “NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION” on labelling in the coming days. The adjudicating authority held the written and oral submissions to be unsatisfactory.
All three have been directed to pull down every listing, advertisement and promotional post for datura fruits and seeds intended for food or human consumption, and barred from displaying, selling or distributing the products in any manner in future. Non-compliance will attract separate proceedings under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, and the rules framed under it.
In a parallel public advisory issued the same day, the commissioner told consumers not to buy, sell or consume datura fruits or seeds, asked platforms and sellers to scrutinise and take down live listings, and directed marketers, wholesalers and distributors to submit records of stock in hand, the source of the product and sales made so far. The public has been asked to report suspicious sale or distribution to food safety officers.
Datura fruits and seeds are widely used in Shiva worship and in some traditional preparations, which is how they surface in grocery listings. All parts including the seeds of the fruit contain highly poisonoustropane alkaloids, which could be fatal even in small doses.
The order escalates a month-long enforcement drive in Karnataka that had so far run on inspections rather than platform-level suspensions.
The department sealed a Zepto warehouse at Hoskote on August 10 and inspected Zomato’s Hyperpure facility at Sakalawara a day later, as part of a statewide drive that Khader has said covered 236 e-commerce warehouses, with proceedings initiated against 44. In Maharashtra, the FDA has suspended 14 dark store licences on, including five each of Blinkit and Zepto and two of Instamart.