Nestle shares climb nearly 3% as Bombay HC quashes Maggi ban

Mumbai: Shares of Nestle India ended nearly three per cent higher on Thursday as the Bombay High Court quashed food regulators’ ban on Maggi noodles. The stock ended the day with a gain of 2.78 per cent at Rs 6,356.70 on the BSE. During the day, it surged 5.82 percent to Rs 6,545. [caption id=“attachment_2391068” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Nestle Maggi. AFP[/caption] At the NSE, shares of the company settled at Rs 6,317.25, up 1.33 percent from its previous close. Following the gain in the stock, the company’s market valuation rose by Rs 1,658.35 crore to Rs 61,288.58 crore. The Bombay High Court on Thursday quashed the orders of the Indian food regulators banning the nine variants of Maggi noodles in the country after observing that “principles of natural justice” were not followed. A division bench of the high court allowed Nestle to go in for fresh testing by sending five samples of each variant of noodles to three independent laboratories in Punjab, Hyderabad and Jaipur which were accredited with National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL). A huge stock of Maggi noodles were destroyed by Nestle after the ban was imposed by the food regulators. If the lead content is found below permissible limits by these three labs, Nestle will be allowed to manufacture Maggi noodles, Justices V M Kanade and B P Colabawalla said. While quashing the orders of the food regulators, namely Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and Maharashtra’s Food and Drugs Department (FDA), the court said that principles of natural justice were not followed because the manufacturer was not given a hearing. Moreover, the laboratories, where tests were performed to determine lead content in Maggi, were not authorised, the court observed. PTI