Two of India's best-known rum brands have taken their regulator to court. The manufacturers of Old Monk and McDowell's No. 1 Celebration Matured Rum have approached the Bombay High Court challenging a prohibition order issued by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) barring the manufacture and sale of fresh stocks of both products, in a dispute that puts FSSAI's enforcement powers over long-established, high-volume alcoholic beverage brands squarely before the Court.
A Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice Ravindra Ghuge and Justice Gautam Ankhad has agreed to hear the manufacturers' challenge to the validity of FSSAI's prohibition order. While the underlying basis for FSSAI's action has not been fully detailed in public reporting, prohibition orders of this kind typically follow from FSSAI's assessment that a product's composition, labelling, or manufacturing process falls short of the standards prescribed under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and its associated regulations — grounds the manufacturers are now contesting as legally unsustainable.
The case is a reminder of how much regulatory exposure FSSAI now carries even for products and brands with decades of market presence and an established consumer base — longevity in the market offers no inherent protection against a fresh compliance action if FSSAI concludes current standards are not being met, and a prohibition order can be issued and take practical effect on distribution and sales well before any court has ruled on its underlying validity. That sequencing — enforcement first, judicial review after — is precisely what makes interim relief applications, rather than the merits alone, often the most commercially urgent battleground in FSSAI litigation of this kind.
For food and beverage businesses generally, the case underscores the importance of maintaining an active, ongoing compliance posture rather than treating regulatory approval as a one-time hurdle cleared at launch — FSSAI's standards, testing protocols and labelling requirements are revised periodically, and a product formulation or claim that was compliant at launch can fall out of compliance as regulations evolve, exposing even long-established brands to prohibition orders with immediate commercial consequences pending the outcome of any legal challenge.