Home Minister Sudhan Gurung Finds Fish Bone in Omelet; Hotel Fined NPR 3 Lakh

Kathmandu. If inedible items are found in the plate of the country's VIPs, what will be the condition of ordinary citizens? This question has started to arise after a fish bone was found inside an omelet on Home Minister Sudhan Gurung's plate.

Ordinary hotels and restaurants, which people visit and eat at daily, do not even follow the minimum standards of sanitation and food hygiene.

In some restaurants, the oil used for frying fish is reused multiple times for cooking other food. Stale and rotten food items are being sold and distributed freely, but the attention of the concerned bodies never reaches there. In Nepal, market monitoring is done only during festivals. Even if monitoring is done at other times, it is only perfunctory.

From ordinary snack shops to five-star hotels, inedible items are found to be mixed and sold. Rotten food items were found sold within Singha Durbar, the country's main administrative center, and extreme negligence has been observed in well-known sweet shops.

Despite such negligence, regulatory bodies tend to let them off with a simple fine.

Bone Found in Omelet; Fine of Three Lakhs

Home Minister Sudhan Gurung found a fish bone in his egg omelet while having breakfast on Tuesday morning at the first general convention of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP). The fish bone was found while eating an egg omelet ordered as breakfast at 'Lords Business Complex Hotel Pvt. Ltd.' located in Ward No. 10, Bharatpur Metropolitan City, Chitwan. After a video of the incident went viral, a team led by the Assistant Chief District Officer (Inspection Officer) conducted an emergency inspection of the hotel.

During the inspection, serious negligence was found in the hotel's kitchen. A notice issued by the District Administration Office, Chitwan, stated that the hotel was using substandard cooking oil, not paying attention to the freshness of vegetables, and providing food that could seriously affect consumers' health. This negligence by the hotel was deemed a violation of Section 16, Sub-section 2, Clause (a) and Section 38, Clause (e) of the Consumer Protection Act, 2075 BS.

Based on this offense, the hotel was immediately fined NPR 300,000 in cash as per Section 39, Sub-section 1, Clause (b) of the Act, by the decision of the Assistant Chief District Officer (Inspection Officer). The inspection team also destroyed all the inedible and substandard items seized from the hotel.

Inedible Items Inside Singha Durbar

This negligence in the Home Minister's meal is a representative incident. Such inedible items are also found in abundance within Singha Durbar, the country's main administrative center.

On Jestha 29, a joint inspection team from the Department of Commerce, Supply and Consumer Protection and the Department of Food Technology and Quality Control conducted an emergency inspection of the Central Canteen operating inside Singha Durbar. During the inspection, extreme negligence was found in the store of the canteen operated by 'G&B Cafe Group'. The team found 17 kg of weevil-infested chickpea dal, 11 kg of damp almonds, and 14 broken eggs unfit for consumption in the store.

Upon finding substandard raw materials being used and stored in a manner that directly affects consumer health, the inspection team immediately seized and destroyed the substandard materials worth approximately NPR 6,560. The department determined that the cafe had violated Section 16 (2) (a) of the Consumer Protection Act, 2075 BS, by using inedible and expired items, and fined the cafe NPR 201,000 as per Section 39 (1) (b) of the same Act.

Another extreme negligence was found at the famous 'Bagmati Sweets Pvt. Ltd.' located in Tripureshwor, Kathmandu-11. On Chaitra 29, this sweet shop provided snacks at a public event. The following day, Chaitra 30, a joint team from the Department of Food Technology and Quality Control and the District Administration Office, Kathmandu, conducted an inspection and found serious deficiencies in sanitation and quality.

Subsequently, on Baisakh 1, after receiving complaints from customers about finding insects in the dry fruits they purchased, the administration completely halted the production and sale of the company and initiated legal proceedings according to the prevailing law.

Furthermore, last year, the Kathmandu Metropolitan City fined the 'Dharahara Tapari Mom Pasal' near Dharahara in Kathmandu NPR 200,000 after a customer found a ring in the momos served.

'Not Just Fines, Compensation Should Be Provided Under Tort Law'

Legal experts say that the administrative action of fining the hotel NPR 300,000 after the Home Minister found a bone in his omelet cannot be considered complete.

Senior Advocate Narayan Prasad Ghimire, who is knowledgeable in consumer tort law, stated that such negligence should not only be fined but also compensated for the physical or mental damage caused to the consumer, as per the existing legal provisions.

According to him, hotels and restaurants providing hospitality services have a legal duty to exercise the utmost care and vigilance towards the life, health, and safety of their customers. Failure to fulfill this duty or negligence falls under tort law. He stated that the entire responsibility lies with the concerned employees, management, and the service provider.

He clarified that the NPR 300,000 fine imposed on the Chitwan hotel is merely an administrative and formal action. He emphasized that legal provisions exist to compensate for the physical harm, mental trauma, or other health problems caused to the victim due to negligence. He also informed that internationally, strict legal practices are in place to impose heavy compensation for health impacts on service recipients due to unhealthy food.

He pointed out that although this incident gained attention because it involved the Home Minister, many realities of unhealthy or negligently prepared food being served daily in hotels across the country, especially along highways, do not make it to the media.

Criminal Liability and Lack of Consumer Court: Rights Activist Timilsina

Similarly, consumer rights activist Bishnu Prasad Timilsina is also not ready to consider the NPR 300,000 fine as sufficient. According to him, selling and distributing substandard, impure, and contaminated food items is a serious criminal offense.

"We don't pick and choose when eating eggs or omelets. Consumers do not expect to find fish bones in their omelets," said Timilsina. "If that bone had gotten stuck in the throat after eating, it could have been fatal at times. It could have required surgery to remove, causing immense pain. At least the Home Minister was spared."