The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) keeps facing flak regularly as reports of substandard or adulterated food keep surfacing. The country’s nodal authority on food safety, however, is in the eye of an entirely different storm this time. A bid to gag activists with a criminal case for questioning the recruitment of five top-level officers.
An FIR was filed against five X (Twitter) handles on March 24, 2026, at New Delhi’s IP Estate Police station after the activists cited an internal FSSAI document to allege that five of the six appointees provided inaccurate details related to work experience and salary while joining. A report of an internal committee constituted in December 2024 to find out facts was cited by the activists.
The FIR was registered against handles, including @khurpenchh, @YTKDIndia, @gemsofbabus_, @IamTheStory_, and @NalinisKitchen.
The FIR was based on a complaint from an FSSAI official, but there is no clarity if the national food safety authority had sought such a complaint. It was alleged that the activists circulated “misleading content” and “confidential internal documents”.
On April 1, Delhi Police wrote to Twitter Inc for information regarding the handles. The letter said that the case pertained to allegations by the “victim” that “certain posts were published by multiple handles with the malicious intent to defame her and damage her reputation in society”.
A police officer at the IP Estate police station refused to divulge further details, saying that the complaint was made from the department’s side. India Today Digital has written to the Chairperson of the FSSAI with a detailed questionnaire on the FIR and the allegations regarding the recruitment of the officials. The copy will be updated as and when we receive the reply from FSSAI.
The FIR had a chilling effect on some.
“Delhi Police have filed an FIR against me. I had written about an FSSAI issue. I have already taken down those posts and am also removing many others. I already have too many things going on in my life,” posted Nalini Unagar on X on April 2.
“In the future, you may see me silent. I cannot handle this level of stress anymore. Thanks,” Unagar added.
At least three of the handles stood defiant.
“So, Delhi Police has filed an FIR against me for exposing irregularities in FSSAI. Nice,” posted GemsofBabus with an applause emoji.
Khurpench, who has spearheaded several social initiatives, questioned if a criminal complaint was the best that FSSAI or one of its officials could have mustered in this instance.
“Should the focus not be on verifying the allegations against the accused and taking appropriate action, rather than questioning the channel through which the information surfaced,” questioned Khurpench in a statement.
Khurpench said FSSAI’s own report found five of six officials being probed had provided misleading or false information, including “fabricated experience letters, incorrect CTC details, and in some cases, candidates who did not even meet the prescribed selection criteria.”
Khurpench named Kavitha Ramasamy (Joint Director), Bharat Pachiya (Deputy Director), Vaidehi Sanjay Kalzunkar (Deputy Director), Sweety Behera (Director) and Saurav Duggal (Assistant Manager) to be those whose documents and claims didn’t match according to the probe report that the activists accessed. Lokendra Kumar (Joint Director) was also probed and given a clean chit, Khurpench posted.
“After thoroughly reviewing this report, we repeatedly raised concerns and warned FSSAI about these irregularities. However, no concrete action was taken by the authority,” said Khurpench. The activist claimed that they were in “possession of other documents, gathered through online research, which point toward further irregularities and possible misconduct within FSSAI”.
The news of the FIR against the activists sparked massive backlash against FSSAI, with people questioning what its priorities were.
“There is something seriously wrong if a body charged with regulating food goes to the police to file FIRs against those who question its performance,” posted veteran journalist Vir Sanghvi. “What is the FSSAI really regulating? Food? Or people who question it? Deeply disturbing,” he said.
“It’s incredible, really just what junk gets passed as edible. How can anybody in charge be that useless or compromised?” asked celebrity photographer Atul Kasbekar.
Amid the outrage over the FIR against the activists, a video of a synthetic paneer manufacturing unit in Surat went viral. The unit was reportedly using palmolein oil, milk solids, and industrial acids to manufacture 400 kg of adulterated paneer every day for at least two years now.
Sharing the fake paneer video, former DGP of J&K Shesh Paul Vaid posted, “FSSAI is defunct in India. Somewhere, something is wrong. Someone in GOI needs to look into its working and provide a mechanism, provide staff and resources to make it effective, so that our countrymen’s health can be saved.”
The outrage seems justified because the FSSAI has remained more of a paper tiger despite substandard and adulterated food products being sold across the country. The FSSAI is a central authority that depends on state machineries and bodies to carry out its supervision and raids. This makes top-level appointments very important.
In November 2025, several members of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee raised serious concerns over the unchecked sale of adulterated goods, particularly adulterated sweets, during the festivals, according to a report in The Hindu.
“I love how savagely the FSSAI FIR is backfiring,” said Nikhil Mehra, a Delhi-based lawyer, sharing a video of the fake paneer plant in Surat.
The FSSAI and its officials, who are mostly in sleep mode when it comes to the quality of food products, showed tremendous alacrity when it came to some activists highlighting its own probe report on recruitment. Shooting the messenger has always produced disastrous results.
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