Pune FDA Suspends Licenses of Vaishali and Roopali

Two of Pune's best-known restaurant names are closed by order, not by choice. The Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration suspended the food-business licenses of Vaishali and Roopali on Fergusson College Road after inspections on November 13, 2026, found serious hygiene and storage lapses at both. Neither restaurant can serve dine-in customers, sell parcels or take home-delivery orders until the FDA gives written permission.

The findings at Vaishali are specific. Inspectors recorded a score of 58 out of 98 and noted a freezer next to the women's toilet, a dosa griddle beside the men's toilet, open storage of cooked food in a corridor, missing pest-proof doors, and absent temperature and drinking-water test records. The action was taken under FDA Joint Commissioner Shrikant R. Karkale, with the order issued by Assistant Commissioner Syed Imran Hashmi, according to local reporting.

Roopali's list runs to systems as much as surfaces. The FDA found an open kitchen exposed to dust and insects, waterlogging, poor cleaning and waste disposal, and uncovered food without labels or use-by dates. It also found missing food-safety management plans, standard operating procedures and FoSTaC training records.

The legal mechanism is a suspension, not a cancellation. Officials used section 32(3) of the Food Safety and Standards Act to stop all food sales until the restaurants correct the listed deficiencies and supply the missing safety records. Reopening requires a fresh inspection that establishes compliance, followed by written FDA clearance, and the department hasn't announced a reinspection date.

The responses split. The move sits inside the Safe Food, Safe Maharashtra campaign led by Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe. Vaishali has pledged quick compliance, while Roopali's manager objected to the immediacy of the suspension and said many of the findings were documentary. For customers, the practical fact is simpler: both FC Road institutions are dark this weekend, and the next public record that matters is each restaurant's reinspection and reinstatement order.

What the FDA hasn't said is also on the record. The department hasn't announced how long the suspensions will last, and it hasn't said whether any food samples were sent for laboratory testing. That leaves the timeline where the order puts it: with the restaurants' repairs, the inspectors' return visit and a written reinstatement, in that order.