This may sound like the plot of a movie, but it seems like there are two contenders for the title of “The Man Who Exposed Maggi”.
Initially, Mr VK Pandey, Barabanki’s food safety inspector was being hailed as the man who lead the entire testing and reporting. In several interviews, Pandey has described how his team collected Maggi samples last year, sent it for tests and then notified Nestle over the excess lead and MSG, and then sent the samples for further tests to the Central Food Laboratory in Kolkata to confirm that Maggi was indeed dangerous for consumption.
However one of Pandey’s juniors in the same department, Mr Sanjay Singh has claimed to be the one who first sent the samples for testing. Sanjay, who is a 1998 batch food inspector, has accused his boss of wrongly taking the credit for work done by him.
Pandey, on the other hand, has acknowledged Singh’s work but insisted that the action was taken under his intructions.
We think it’s quite shameful that two officers are now taking claim for the same expose, since it is clear that at least one of them is misrepresenting facts. If Singh initiated all action, then Pandey should not take credit. But if Pandey instructed Singh to take action, then Singh should not claim to have done everything on his own.
We hope the good work done by the Barabanki Food Safety Unit is not reduced to a joke due to such statements being given to the media. We hope our officers will act maturely and not squabble over credit.
