(Reuters) - The food safety authority has appealed in the Supreme Court a regional court's order in favour of the Indian unit of Nestle SA in its battle to overturn a nationwide ban of its Maggi instant noodles, local media reported on Monday.
Nestle India resumed selling its popular Maggi noodles this month after getting the green light from government laboratories, as mandated by the Bombay High Court in August.
The company faced its worst public relations crisis after Indian regulators reported in May that some packets of the Maggi noodles contained unsafe levels of lead.
On Monday, local media reported that the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) filed a plea in the Supreme Court against the Bombay High Court's verdict in favour of Nestle.
The FSSAI petition in the Supreme Court said the regional court erred by asking Nestle itself, instead of asking a neutral authority, to provide the fresh Maggi samples for testing at the government laboratories, according to the Hindu newspaper.
FSSAI chief Ashish Bahuguna declined to comment on the media reports when contacted by Reuters. An India-based spokesman for Nestle, the world's largest packaged food company, did not immediately respond to request for comment.
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(Reporting by Sumeet Chatterjee and Devidutta Tripathy in MUMBAI and Suchitra Mohanty in NEW DELHI)