New Delhi: In a major judgement, the Delhi High Court has stripped Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) of its power to issue licence for manufacturing and processing of "packaged drinking water" holding that Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) was the sole competent authority in this regard.

"There is no purpose in two authorities scrutinising the very norms for a premises where packaged drinking water has to be manufactured and the more stringent norms as prescribed by BIS are liable to be followed," Justice S K Kaul said quashing notices issued by MCD to 10 local mineral water manufacturing plants.

"There would thus be no purpose in the Corporation trying to inspect and see the norms when BIS itself has machinery in place for carrying out such inspection," the court held.

The MCD had issued notices to the companies packaging mineral water on the ground that they were running the trade under unsanitary and unhygienic conditions without a valid health department licence.

Notwithstanding the valid BIS certificate with the manufacturers, the MCD had asked them to close down their operations within 24 hours of the receipt of the notice saying the civic laws required them to obtain additional licence from the civic authorities in addition to permission of the Commissioner to establish the factory.

The companies challenging the jurisdiction of MCD to regulate their trade, submitted before the Court through counsel Kamal Mehta that as BIS had already prescribed rules and regulations for the trade, MCD could not have enacted additional norms for the same.

PTI