No Canteen Is Above the Law: Why Tukaram Mundhe’s Crackdown Deserves Public Support
For most citizens, food safety is an act of faith. They buy milk assuming it has not been diluted or chemically manipulated. They order food believing the kitchen is reasonably clean. They purchase sweets, dairy products and packaged items trusting that the ingredients match the label. Yet the consumer rarely has the ability to verify any of these assumptions before the food enters the body.
That is what makes food adulteration and unhygienic kitchens especially dangerous. A pothole can be seen. An inflated bill can be challenged. A defective product can often be returned. Contaminated food, however, may look perfectly normal until the damage has already been done. Children, senior citizens and people with underlying illnesses are particularly exposed, but no consumer is immune.
This is the context in which Tukaram Mundhe’s recent tenure as Maharashtra’s Food and Drug Administration Commissioner has attracted widespread attention. Mundhe is not merely presiding over another ceremonial awareness campaign. The FDA under him has launched visible enforcement against milk adulteration, unsafe dairy products, unhygienic kitchens and establishments operating without proper compliance. In July, a statewide operation reportedly intercepted nearly 2,000 litres of milk and hundreds of kilograms of dairy products, while the wider crackdown led to arrests, seizures and tighter scrutiny of the milk supply chain.
But raids on adulterated milk or commercial kitchens, however important, are not the only reason this campaign deserves public appreciation. Its greater significance lies in where the enforcement has begun to travel.
The FDA has not remained confined to roadside vendors, neighbourhood restaurants or small businesses incapable of resisting the state. It has entered prominent establishments, questioned institutional kitchens and inspected canteens located inside Maharashtra’s corridors of power. Most symbolically, the department reached the Bombay High Court itself.
That is the point at which a routine regulatory drive became a statement about equality before the law.
Food Adulteration Is Not a Minor Regulatory Lapse
There is a tendency to describe food-safety violations in the bloodless vocabulary of administration: non-compliance, documentation failure, improper storage or licence irregularity. Such language may be legally necessary, but it can obscure what is actually at stake.
A business that sells adulterated milk is not merely filling out the wrong form. An establishment that stores food in contaminated conditions is not committing the culinary equivalent of a parking violation. These failures can expose thousands of unsuspecting consumers to illness and long-term health risks.
Milk adulteration is especially serious because milk is not a luxury purchase consumed occasionally. It is a daily staple in millions of homes and an important part of children’s diets. Maharashtra’s recent crackdown reportedly uncovered synthetic-milk operations and resulted in stricter compliance requirements across the supply chain. Officials also seized milk and dairy products suspected of violating safety standards before they could reach consumers.
The purpose of a food regulator is not merely to respond after people fall ill. Its principal responsibility is preventive. It must make adulteration risky, non-compliance expensive and neglect commercially irrational.
That requires more than regulations printed in government manuals. It requires inspectors willing to inspect, laboratories capable of testing, officials prepared to act and leadership willing to absorb the pressure that inevitably follows.
Mundhe’s campaign has made the FDA visible in a way that food-safety regulation rarely is. That visibility matters because deterrence depends not only on the severity of punishment, but also on the perceived likelihood of being caught.
The Easy Raid Is Always Against the Powerless
Every enforcement campaign must confront an uncomfortable question: is the regulator pursuing the most serious violations, or merely the easiest targets?
Closing a small eatery is administratively simple. Its owner may lack political access, institutional influence and the financial ability to challenge the order immediately. Street vendors and neighbourhood establishments are highly visible and comparatively vulnerable, making them convenient subjects for dramatic enforcement.
They should not be exempt from food-safety rules. Consumers deserve safe food regardless of whether they are eating at a roadside stall or a five-star hotel. But a campaign that operates only against weaker businesses soon begins to resemble selective enforcement rather than public-health protection.
The true test begins when inspectors approach premium hotels, influential clubs, government offices and institutions capable of generating legal, political or bureaucratic resistance.
A regulator proves its independence not when it exercises power over those who cannot answer back, but when it is prepared to apply the law where power is concentrated.
That is why the FDA’s expansion into government and judicial establishments deserves attention.
When the FDA Entered the Bombay High Court
The inspection of canteens on the Bombay High Court premises carried extraordinary symbolic weight.
Following judicial questions about whether the FDA’s drive extended to government and semi-government establishments, officials inspected three canteens on the High Court premises. One canteen had reportedly shut before the inspection and subsequently received a stop-business order. Reports also indicated concerns about registration or licensing, records and hygiene, although the canteen reportedly moved to secure the required licence.
It would be easy to portray this as an institutional confrontation—an aggressive commissioner intruding upon the judiciary’s premises. That would be the wrong interpretation.
The canteen was not the court. Inspecting its kitchen did not question judicial independence, interfere with adjudication or challenge the authority of judges. It simply recognised that food served within a courthouse remains subject to the same physical realities and legal obligations as food served anywhere else.
Bacteria do not respect constitutional architecture. Contamination does not disappear because the kitchen is located inside a building associated with justice. A missing food licence does not become irrelevant because judges, lawyers and court employees are among the customers.
Indeed, the inspection strengthened the principle the judiciary itself exists to uphold: no person or institution is above the law.
The symbolism was powerful precisely because courts ordinarily scrutinise the conduct of governments, businesses and citizens. There is nothing improper about a statutory regulator scrutinising a commercial food operation located within court premises. An institution confident in the rule of law should welcome lawful inspection rather than expect immunity from it.
Mantralaya Cannot Demand Government Immunity
The same principle must apply to Mantralaya and other government establishments.
The Bombay High Court has raised serious questions about whether the FDA treated private restaurants more harshly than government canteens. Reports said the court questioned why some establishments faced licence suspensions or closure while the Mantralaya canteen was given an improvement notice. It also criticised the reported condition of the canteen and demanded clarity regarding the standards used by the regulator.
The concern about favouritism is legitimate. A government canteen cannot receive leniency merely because it is operated within the state’s administrative headquarters. The government cannot demand stringent compliance from private kitchens while treating its own premises as a protected category.
In fact, public establishments should be held to a higher expectation—not necessarily a different statute or harsher arbitrary punishment, but a greater institutional responsibility to demonstrate compliance.
The state writes the rules. It appoints inspectors. It prosecutes violations. It therefore has a special obligation to ensure that its own establishments meet the standards it imposes on everyone else.
However, the debate must not collapse into the simplistic argument that every violation must produce the same punishment.
Equal Standards Do Not Require Identical Punishments
The demand for equality before the law is sometimes misunderstood as a demand for mechanical uniformity.
Suppose one kitchen is properly licensed but has deficiencies that can be corrected within a specified period without creating an immediate danger. Suppose another establishment is operating without registration, has serious contamination, unsafe storage or repeated violations. Treating both establishments identically would not necessarily be fair. It could itself become arbitrary.
The correct principle is straightforward: the identity of the owner must not determine the action, but the nature and seriousness of the findings should.
An improvement notice may be appropriate where deficiencies are remediable and do not require an immediate shutdown. Suspension or a stop-business order may be justified where the violation creates a substantial risk, where the establishment lacks mandatory authorisation, where earlier directions were ignored or where continuing operations would endanger consumers.
Therefore, the fact that the High Court canteen and Mantralaya canteen may have received different directions does not, by itself, establish discrimination. The relevant questions are what inspectors found, how serious those findings were, whether there was an immediate risk, whether the operators had a history of non-compliance and whether the corrective action prescribed was legally proportionate.
The Bombay High Court was right to ask the FDA to explain its criteria. Transparency strengthens enforcement. It helps courts determine whether action is lawful, allows businesses to understand their obligations and reassures the public that influence did not determine the outcome.
But scrutiny of the criteria should not become an excuse to weaken the campaign itself.
Due Process Must Protect Fairness, Not Institutional Privilege
Hospitality associations have complained that parts of the FDA crackdown may have bypassed statutory procedure and have sought intervention before licences are suspended. The Bombay High Court has also overturned or questioned some enforcement actions, including the continued suspension of a hotel licence where the inspection’s overall findings were substantially satisfactory apart from the reported presence of two insects.
These objections cannot simply be dismissed. Food-safety enforcement must be capable of surviving judicial scrutiny. Laboratory reports must be reliable. Inspection findings must be properly recorded. Businesses must receive the protections guaranteed by law. Punishments must correspond to the severity of the offence.
An uncompromising officer is not entitled to become an arbitrary one.
Yet due process must remain a shield against wrongful state action, not a weapon for paralysing legitimate regulation. The existence of procedural safeguards does not imply that every kitchen must receive repeated indulgence before consumers are protected. Nor should a regulator be portrayed as unreasonable merely because enforcement disrupts businesses accustomed to relaxed scrutiny.
The proper response is to improve the quality of orders, strengthen documentation and create clear enforcement grades—not to return to an era in which regulations existed largely on paper.
Mundhe’s campaign should be made more legally durable, not administratively timid.
Public Establishments Serve the Public
There is another misconception behind the debate: that a government or court canteen is somehow an internal institutional arrangement and therefore fundamentally different from a private food business.
It is not.
These canteens serve employees, officials, lawyers, police personnel, visitors and, depending on access arrangements, members of the wider public. Money changes hands and food is prepared for human consumption. The consumer’s right to safety does not weaken because the operator has an institutional connection.
Nor should anyone assume that government ownership guarantees better standards. Government buildings are not self-cleaning, and public-sector kitchens are not automatically protected from infestation, poor storage, expired products or careless management.
A government establishment that fails food-safety standards harms the public twice. First, it places consumers at risk. Second, it destroys the moral authority with which the state regulates private businesses.
Before the government tells a small restaurant to clean its refrigerator, it must be able to open its own refrigerator without embarrassment.
Why Mundhe’s Campaign Has Struck a Chord
Public admiration for Tukaram Mundhe is not merely fascination with raids or the personality of a strict officer.
It reflects a deeper frustration with the functioning of the Indian state.
Citizens frequently encounter rules that appear severe when applied to them but flexible when powerful institutions are involved. They see traffic regulations enforced selectively, building violations regularised for the influential and public facilities allowed to deteriorate without accountability. This creates the impression that compliance is demanded primarily from those without connections.
Mundhe’s FDA campaign has challenged that perception by demonstrating a willingness to move upward through the institutional hierarchy.
The High Court canteen inspection mattered because it showed that the regulator was prepared to enter a space associated with power. Scrutiny of Mantralaya matters because government kitchens cannot be permitted to hide behind government ownership. Action against prominent establishments matters because food poisoning does not become less serious when the consumer paid a premium price.
The public is not necessarily cheering every individual order or assuming that every allegation has been conclusively proved. It is responding to the rare sight of a regulator behaving as though influence should not determine inspection.
That instinct deserves encouragement.
The Establishment’s Discomfort Is Not Evidence of Excess
Whenever enforcement becomes effective, those affected will describe it as excessive.
Some objections will be genuine. Others will be attempts to restore the comfortable old equilibrium in which inspections were predictable, consequences were negotiable and compliance could be postponed.
The distinction must be made carefully. Courts should intervene where the FDA exceeds its legal powers, ignores procedure or imposes disproportionate punishment. Businesses should be allowed to challenge erroneous findings. Government canteens should be subjected to the same scrutiny as private establishments.
But the mere fact that influential bodies are uncomfortable cannot become evidence that the campaign is misguided.
Regulation is supposed to create discomfort for non-compliance. A food-safety authority that never disrupts a business, suspends an operation or provokes litigation is not necessarily fair. It may simply be ineffective.
The standard must be lawful firmness: strong enough to protect the public, disciplined enough to withstand judicial review and impartial enough to enter any kitchen.
Maharashtra Must Not Make This About One Officer
There is also a danger in converting a necessary institutional campaign into the story of one heroic bureaucrat.
Mundhe deserves credit for energising the FDA and carrying enforcement into places that may previously have appeared insulated. But Maharashtra’s food-safety system cannot depend permanently on the courage, reputation or tenure of one commissioner.
Officers are transferred. Governments change. Public attention moves elsewhere. Unless the methods are institutionalised, the old habits return as soon as the exceptional administrator leaves.
The government should therefore build a transparent enforcement framework around the current drive. Inspection reports should be digitised and, where legally permissible, made publicly accessible. Violations should be graded according to risk. The criteria for improvement notices, suspensions and stop-business orders should be clearly defined. Government and semi-government kitchens should undergo mandatory periodic inspections rather than waiting for courts or commissioners to demand them.
Laboratory capacity must be strengthened, and inspection teams must be protected from local political interference. Repeat offenders should face escalating consequences, while establishments that correct minor deficiencies promptly should not be treated as though they committed deliberate adulteration.
That is how a crackdown becomes governance.
No Kitchen Should Be Protected by Its Address
The ultimate principle is simple enough to fit on the wall of every food regulator in the country: the safety of food must be determined by what is found in the kitchen, not by the name written outside the building.
A roadside stall should not be harassed because it is powerless. A luxury hotel should not be protected because it is influential. A government canteen should not receive leniency because the state owns it. A court canteen should not be treated as untouchable because it operates within the premises of the judiciary.
Different violations may justify different actions. Minor and correctable deficiencies need not invite the same punishment as adulteration, active contamination, deliberate deception or unlicensed operation. Equality requires consistent criteria and proportionate consequences—not blind uniformity.
Tukaram Mundhe’s achievement is that he has forced Maharashtra to confront this principle in practice. His campaign has made food safety visible, taken enforcement beyond convenient targets and carried public-health accountability into institutions accustomed to exercising authority themselves.
The FDA must follow due process. It must explain differences in treatment. It must ensure that its orders are supported by evidence and capable of surviving judicial review.
But Maharashtra should not mistake accountability for aggression or institutional discomfort for injustice.
When a food regulator enters the High Court, Mantralaya or any other seat of power, it is not insulting the establishment. It is reminding the establishment that the laws written for citizens also apply within its own walls.
No canteen is above the law. And Maharashtra’s most powerful institutions should be the first to prove it.
