New Delhi, Aug 13: Multinational soft drinks manufacturer Coca Cola today withdrew its petition from the Supreme Court after the latter refused to interfere in the resolution of the controversy pertaining to alleged pesticide content in its products. A bench comprising Justice S Rajendra Babu, Justice Ar. Lakshmanan and Justice G P Mathur asked petitioner Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt Ltd as to which of its rights was affected and wondered as to why some set of soft drink manufacturers moved the Delhi High Court while others came directly to the supreme court.
Before dismissing the petition as withdrawn, the bench refused to be drawn into repeated plea of the petitioner`s counsel Kapil Sibal to convert the petition into a public interest litigation to protect the rights of the consumer.
Sibal said municipalities in West Bengal, Punjab and Rajasthan had initiated the process for banning the sale of Coca-Cola on the basis of the results of tests conducted by the NGO, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), which could not be taken to be the one done by experts.
The bench, at this point, observed, "Can one not say that he does not want to drink soft drinks? You approach whichever forum you think appropriate to enforce your right, but we will not entertain this petition."
The other soft drink major Pepsi had approached the Delhi High Court on Friday demanding independent evaluation of CSE`s "damaging" report holding that the CSE lab had no accreditation and the methods and process adopted in preparing the report were "suspect".
Bureau Report