There’s a bomb in your fruit and it’ll explode over time

Taking suo motu cognizance of a news report on rampant use of banned pesticides in vegetables and fruits, the Delhi high court asked the Centre and the state government on Wednesday to conduct tests in approved laboratories after procuring farm produce “randomly” from various markets and file a detailed report by May 11.

The order followed a government affidavit expressing helplessness in preventing misuse of banned pesticides.

The court said, “The government cannot ignore a serious matter of public health in such a casual manner.”

In the affidavit, the government said as of now it did not have a machine to detect oxytocin and calcium carbide (used to make bombs) in fruits and vegetables.

“We would like to find out whether pesticides are there in vegetables or not. It would be appropriate that vegetables are purchased randomly and sent for tests to laboratories certified by National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories,” a bench headed by chief justice Dipak Misra said.

The report on which the court order is based quoted a study by NGO Consumer Voice. It said the amount of pesticides used in India was as much as 750 times European standards.

Of five internationally-banned pesticides, four are commonly found in vegetables and fruits in India, it said.

These pesticides can cause headache and affect fertility and can damage kidney and liver, the report said. The NGO said tests revealed Indian ladies finger contained up to 15,000 parts-per-billion of captan, a fungicide.