Next time, look carefully at the label of the product before buying it, as the Supreme Court believes the company cannot be blamed and found guilty of misbranding a food article if the picture on its label has nothing to do with the food article concerned. A division bench comprising Justices PP Naolekar and LS Panta, however, clarified that this rule would not apply if the label tended to exaggerate the quality of the product, which would then be an offence under Rule 37 D of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act. "Unless the picture depicted on a label of edible oils and fats exaggerates the quality of the product, it would not violate the Rule 37 D,' the court said, setting aside the decision of the Andhra Pradesh High Court which found a company misbranding its product by carrying a label which was not relevant as far as the product was concerned. The product in question was soyabean oil and the label, as noticed by the High Court, contained pictures of vegetables like cabbage, carrot, brinjal, capsicum, cauliflower, tomato and onions, which it found "are in no way connected with soyabean oil'. The decision came on the petition filed by M/s Parakah Food Limited, engaged in manufacture and sale of Shaktimaan Refined Soyabean Oil, as action for violating provisions of PFA, including misbranding, was initiated against it. Although the High Court quashed the prosecution against it, it maintained "a clear case of misbranding is made out'. Agreeing with the contention of the state food inspector, it concluded that the Parakah Food Limited had violated Rule 37 D of the PFA Rules. However, the apex court said: "In our opinion, the High Court has committed a serious error in arriving at a finding that the article of food (soyabean oil) was misbranded, since the picture contained on the label has nothing to do with the article of food in question, ignoring the fact that the article of food can be used for cooking the vegetables shown in the picture which cannot be said to be exaggerating the quality of the food in question.' The bench concurred with the arguments put forth by Ashok Desai, senior advocate, who said the article of food could be considered to be misbranded only when false claims were made with respect to such article of food on the label or otherwise.