Supreme
Court Upholds
Importance Of Biosafety
By Kavitha Kuruganti
21 May, 2007
Countercurrents.org
In
the orders passed after the May 8th hearing in the GMOs PIL filed by
Aruna Rodrigues and three others, the Supreme Court of India clearly
upheld once again the importance of biosafety when it comes to Genetically
Modified Organisms (GMOs). The Union of India applied for a vacation
of the Court’s orders in September 2006 which directed the GEAC
(Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, the apex regulatory authority
in India) “to withhold (any) approvals till further directions
are issued”.
In September, the Court was
not inclined to stop ongoing field trials which included 90 Multi-Location
Trials (MLTs), 32 experimental seed production, 18 strip trials and
5 pollen flow studies for a variety of crops – these included
Rice, Potato, Okra, Tomato, Groundnut, Brinjal, Cauliflower, Cabbage,
Mustard, Castor, Corn and Sorghum in addition to GM cotton. The GEAC’s
meeting minutes between December 2006 - February 2007 showcase the inability
of the apex regulatory authority to keep track of where the field trials
are happening – if field trial locations are not known, how was
monitoring taking place of either the efficacy of the technology or
the biosafety aspects related to conducting the trials was not answered
in any forum by the regulators so far.
As sowings for Kharif 2007
draw close, the GM ‘promoter-regulators’ of the country
along with the industry rushed to the Supreme Court praying for a vacation
of the September orders, arguing that adequate framework exists to regulate
GMOs in the country. The petitioners had enough evidence built to show
that on the scientific front as well as the institutional front, the
biosafety regime in India is seriously lacking and that field trials
in a business-as-usual mode were going to jeopardize our environment
irreversibly through contamination.
On May 8th 2007, the Supreme
Court heard the petitioners (and the impleadment applications by farmers
and rice exporters in support of the petition) and the respondents (the
regulators as well as the biotech seed industry associations who had
impleaded recently) in a nearly-daylong hearing. In its Orders at the
end of the day, the Court did not grant the Government of India its
prayer for a vacation on the ban on field trials. Instead, it clarified
that if any trials are going on or are to go on pursuant to approvals
granted between 2/5/2006 and 22/9/2006, these trials would be subject
to additional conditionalities – that the GEAC should ensure that
there is no contamination from these trials to other fields close-by.
In all the trials which are being conducted, the name of the scientist
who will be responsible and other details for all aspects of the trials
should be reported to the GEAC and there should be a regular supervision
by them. The Court also ordered that prior to bringing out the GM material
from the greenhouse for conduct of open field trials, the approved institution
should submit a validated, event-specific test protocol at an LOD of
at least 0.01% to detect and confirm that there has been no contamination.
The Court also asked to see the toxicity and allergenicity data, if
any, related to Bt Cotton while allowing GEAC to permit commercial releases
for four approved species of GM cotton. However, it ordered that no
further GM cotton species be approved. By these historic orders, the
Supreme Court has once again upheld the importance of biosafety issues
related to GM crops.
What was surprising to see
was the alacrity by which the Ministry of Environment & Forests,
housing the GEAC, put out a press release the next day which misreports
the Court’s orders in an irresponsible fashion as a vacation of
the September 2006 orders. The reality is quite the contrary. Field
trials, if any flowing out of approvals during May and September 2006,
will be under stricter conditions. In addition to the Court’s
orders, GEAC, under pressure from farmers’ unions and civil society
groups had already announced that field trial applications will be considered
only if the applicant announces beforehand where the exact location
of each such trial would be and with the prior written consent of the
Panchayat in whose jurisdiction such a trial is proposed to be taken
up. Further, the DBT and GEAC have also announced that no GM Rice experimentation
will take place in the Basmati belt of India. It is however not clear
how they intend to prevent GM rice seed being tested elsewhere in the
country from reaching the basmati belt, given their pathetic history
of regulating illegal Bt Cotton proliferation from Gujarat.
Meanwhile, there are various
developments against GM crops in different states of the country. In
Tamil Nadu, after the PMK (Dr Anbumani Ramadoss, Union Health Minister
represents this Party), it is now the turn of AIADMK to take a formal
stand against GM crops. In a massive rally in Coimbatore on May 5th,
several legislators and parliamentarians belonging to AIADMK demanded
that the Central and Tamil Nadu state governments ban GM crops.
In Andhra Pradesh, the government
is refusing to compromise on the pricing issue related to Bollgard II
and is insisting on allowing sales only if the seed is priced at Rs.
750/ a packet. Further, the animal husbandry department here recommended
the stoppage of sales of Bt Cotton seeds until it investigates into
the phenomenon of toxicity to animals after grazing on Bt Cotton fields.
Elsewhere, after the Chattisgarh
government, it is now the turn of the West Bengal government to order
an inquiry into the field trials that had happened in the state during
Kharif 2006. The Chattisgarh government, through a formal inquiry, pointed
out several objectionable violations in Mahyco’s GM Rice and GM
Okra trials in Raipur last year.
All in all, despite some
misleading and gloating headlines and editorials in several newspapers,
the biotech industry and the GM regulators have an uphill task ahead
in the coming year, having the Supreme Court, the state governments
and various political parties holding them accountable, unlike in the
past.
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