COMMENT from Aruna Rodrigues: We were in court for just about half an hour during which time the court understood the thrust of the case before it based on the Petitioners July application covering Dr Bhargava's deliberations with the GEAC (India's apex GM regulatory committee), the Govt reply and our Rejoinders and the Austrian study. Therefore, the case will be heard next month as there was no time yesterday.
However, an exchange of comments initiated by our counsel P Bhushan, made it quite clear that we wanted the Court to rule that no Bt brinjal (aubergine / eggplant) would be released in the meantime by the GEAC as this was the great threat looming over the country.
Therefore the Chief Justice asked opposing counsel whether the GEAC were about to commercialise Bt B. Whereupon, on confering, opposing Counsel made in effect the following statement: There are no plans on the anvil to commercialise Bt brinjal.
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SC seeks clarifications from Govt on GMO regulation
ASHOK B SHARMA
Financial Express March 26 2009
http://tiny.cc/ZYgDA
New Delhi: India’s apex court has sought clarifications from three Union ministries agriculture, department of biotechnology (under ministry of science and technology) and environment and forests about government’s regulatory process for genetically modified (GM) crops and its implementation.
The special bench of the Supreme Court consisting of the Chief Justice, KG Balakrishnan, Justice Ashok Ganguly and Justice JM Panchal on Thursday in the course of the hearing acted on two rejoinders to the petition filed by the Convenor of the Gene Campaign, Suman Sahai in September 26, 2008 calling for a direct review of all the approvals for field trials and commercialization of GM crops given by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) and grant of moratorium on GM crop trials until proper regulatory processes were put in place.
The apex court also sought clarifications from US seed multinational, Monsanto’s Indian partner, Mahyco.
Gene Campaign had filed its original petition in 2004 and a year later on the similar lines a public interest litigation was jointly filed by Aruna Rodrigues, PV Satheesh and Rajeev Baruah. The Supreme Court has clubbed both these cases for hearing. The next hearing of the case is slated on April 29, 2009.
The counsel for Aruna Rodrigues and others, Prashant Bhushan said, "The advocate appearing on behalf of the government assured that there are no immediate plans for commercialization of Bt brinjal. The crop is in the process of field trials."
The counsel for the Gene Campaign, Sanjay Parekh said: "We had filed two rejoinders to our petition last year and the apex court acting on our rejoinders has sought clarifications from the Union ministries of agriculture and environment and forests and from the department of biotechnology (DBT)."
The Convenor of Gene Campaign, Suman Sahai alleged that the field trials of Mahyco's Bt rice in Jharkhand has violated all biosafety norms. There was a likelihood of genetic contamination of non-GM rice grown in the area. This was unfortunate as the eastern India alongwith Jharkhand was considered to be one of the centres of origin for rice, she said.
India's approval of GM crops had also raised eyebrows in the countries of its export destination. Russia for instance had imposed a temporary ban on Indian rice and sought clarification whether GM rice was exported.