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The Delhi High Court connected Wednesday (November 12, 2025) refused to assistance immoderate clip to a institution to dispose of its existing banal of electrolyte beverages being sold nether the sanction ORSL, which has been banned by the FSSAI to beryllium labelled arsenic Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS).
A Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela said the allegation was not that this merchandise is harmful, but it is simply a lawsuit of misbranding and it cannot let specified products to stay successful marketplace arsenic the substance relates to nationalist wellness concern.
“Sorry, we can’t licence it. Please callback it (stock). We volition not licence it. We are sorry. The substance relates to nationalist wellness concern,” the Bench told the counsel for petitioner institution JNTL Consumer Health India Pvt Ltd.
The tribunal said the trouble is that successful agrarian areas, if immoderate kid is suffering from diarrhoea, ordinarily, they bargain ORS to equilibrium electrolytes.
“In your product, you are besides penning electrolytes; determination is simply a anticipation of misleading. It is not harmful to idiosyncratic who is acceptable to instrumentality it but it is harmful to those who are unfit to instrumentality it,” it said.
It besides said that ORS has brought a gyration to a mediocre state similar ours and the complaint of deaths of children has gone down successful these areas.
Earlier, UNICEF would administer these for escaped and it is not whether it is harmful, but it is misbranding, the seat said.
The tribunal issued announcement to the Centre and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) connected the main petition challenging the Authority's orders dated October 14 and 15, by which it has withdrawn permissions for food-and-beverage companies to usage the connection 'ORS' successful their labelling unless they met the modular aesculapian formulation.
The tribunal listed the substance for further proceeding connected December 9.
Senior advocates Sandeep Sethi and Mukul Rohatgi, representing the petitioner, submitted that the institution was selling these products for the past 20 years, and the sanction was registered with the Controller of Patents, GIs and Trademarks (CGPDTM).
Mr. Sethi said though the manufacturing of the merchandise has been stopped, the interest was for the goods successful the retail channel, and urged the tribunal to assistance support to liquidate the existing stocks.
The counsel said the manufacturers were not making immoderate claims that their drinks were based connected the WHO-approved look for ORS, and that this had been displayed connected their packaging and told to the consumers arsenic well.
Mr. Rohatgi said determination is nary ailment that the portion was adulterated and that it is for rehydration.
Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma and lasting counsel Ashish Dixit, representing the Centre and FSSAI, opposed the plea connected the crushed that it was a superior substance of nationalist wellness concern.
The petition said done the orders, FSSAI has triggered an abrupt, nationwide and contiguous regulatory orders of seizure, callback and prohibition connected the manufacture and merchantability of the petitioner’s electrolyte beverage ORSL, which has been legitimately manufactured, marketed and sold successful India for implicit 20 years nether valid licences and continuous regulatory supervision.
It said this enactment has efficaciously nullified decades of lawful concern enactment and has upended an full assemblage without immoderate lawful basis.
Earlier, a azygous justice of the High Court had dismissed a plea by Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd challenging the FSSAI's directive restricting usage of the statement 'ORS' for its oral rehydration solution marque Rebalanz VITORS.
The azygous justice had said the measures taken by the FSSAI were impelled by "serious nationalist wellness considerations" and were regulatory measures applicable crossed the nutrient industry.
On October 14, the FSSAI issued an bid withdrawing each anterior permissions for food-and-beverage companies to usage the word 'ORS' successful merchandise names oregon branding unless they met the modular aesculapian formulation.
The nutrient information regulator deemed usage of 'ORS' successful branding by sugary oregon electrolyte drinks arsenic misleading to consumers, peculiarly children, and successful usurpation of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
ORS is recommended by the World Health Organization and is fixed to radical suffering from dehydration.
