The Maligakanda Magistrate’s Court has fined a man from the Wattala area Rs. 42,000 after finding him guilty on 16 charges, including distributing fruit drinks under labels carrying false information, Hiru News reported on Friday.
Delivering the verdict, the Magistrate also ordered the complete destruction of the stock of fruit nectar bearing fake labels seized during the raid.
Five years in business
Officials told the court in further submissions that the accused had run the operation for about five years while evading the authorities.
He was caught using a decoy buyer. Public Health Inspectors of the Colombo Municipal Council conducted the raid, initiated legal proceedings and filed the case before the Maligakanda court.
What the penalty amounts to
Spread across 16 convictions, the fine averages about Rs. 2,625 a charge — a figure to weigh against five years of undetected trading. Hiru does not report the value of the seized stock, so the fine cannot be set against the turnover it was drawn from, and the report does not say whether any further action, such as a ban on trading, accompanied the conviction.
The case also sits at a jurisdictional seam the report does not explain. The accused is described as a Wattala resident — Wattala lies in the Gampaha district, outside Colombo Municipal Council limits — yet the raid was carried out by CMC inspectors and the case filed in Maligakanda, inside Colombo. That points to the distribution, rather than the residence, being what fell within the council’s area.
Mislabelling cases of this kind are prosecuted by municipal Public Health Inspectors rather than the Consumer Affairs Authority, because the offence is framed under food-safety rules governing what a label may state, not under pricing or trade law.
Not reported
Hiru does not name the accused or give his age, identify the brand or brands involved, or say what the labels falsely claimed — whether the misstatement concerned fruit content, manufacturer, expiry date or licensing. It does not give the date of the raid, the quantity or value of the stock destroyed, the statute under which the 16 charges were brought, or the name of the Magistrate.
It does not say where the drinks were being distributed or sold, whether any retailers were also prosecuted, or whether the product posed a health risk as distinct from a labelling breach. No other verified newsroom had filed on the case at the time of writing.
