bangalore holding that packaged drinking water falls within the domain of food safety and standards act 2006 the karnataka high court on friday said that certification by bureau of indian standards bis is mandatory for packaged drinking water disposing of a batch of petitions a division bench comprising chief justice vikramajit sen and justice aravind kumar directed the state government to take all necessary steps to prohibitprevent the manufacture and sale of packaged drinking water without the certification of bis the bench further directed the authorities to take action against those manufacturers of packaged drinking water if they were found to be running their units without bis certification noting that as against 224 units with bis certification 564 without certification are operating in karnataka the bench decided to give them an opportunity to apply for certification all these manufacturers have been granted 15 days time for submitting the prescribed application to the authorities concerned under the fss act bis act and also regulations for issue of bis certificate the authorities have been asked to process the same within three months and notify the deficiencies if any the entire exercise has to be completed in an outer limit of four months in case of exigencies the petitioners had complained that even though there was a bar on selling packaged drinking water without the isi mark the authorities have not taken steps to prevent it some of the manufacturers contended that they were not covered under the fss act