Full Judgment Text
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REPORTABLE
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CIVIL ORIGINAL JURISDICTION
WRIT PETITION (CIVIL) NO.260 OF 2005
ARUNA RODRIGUES & ORS. …
Petitioners
Versus
UNION OF INDIA & ORS. … Respondents
WITH
WRIT PETITION (CIVIL) NO. 115 OF 2004
AND
CONTEMPT PETITION (CIVIL) NO. 295 OF 2007
JUDGMENT
W.P.(C) IN NO.260/2005
R D E R O
Swatanter Kumar, J.
1. The petitioners, who claim to be public spirited
individuals possessing requisite expertise and with the access
to information, stated that a grave and hazardous situation,
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raising bio safety concerns, is developing in our country due to
release of Genetically Modified Organisms (for short ‘GMOs’).
The GMOs are allowed to be released in the environment
without proper scientific examination of bio safety concerns
and affecting both the environment and human health. Thus,
the petitioners in this Public Interest Litigation, under Article
32 of the Constitution of India, submit that the intent and
substance of the petition is to put in place a protocol that shall
maintain scientific examination of all relevant aspects of bio
safety before such release, if release were to be at all
permissible. On this premise, their prayer in the main writ
petition is for the issuance of a direction or order to the Union
of India, not to allow any release of GMOs into the
environment by way of import, manufacture, use or any other
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manner. The ancillary prayers seek prescribing a protocol, to
which all GMOs released would be subjected and that the
Union of India should frame relevant rules in this regard and
ensure its implementation.
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2. This Court, vide its order dated 1 May, 2006, directed
that till further orders, field trials of GMOs shall be conducted
only with the approval of the Genetic Engineering Approval
Committee (for short ‘GEAC’). I.A. No. 4 was filed, in which
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the prayer was for issuance of directions to stop all field trials
for all genetically modified products anywhere and everywhere.
The Court, however, declined to direct stoppage of field trials
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and instead, vide order dated 22 September, 2009 directed
the GEAC to withhold approvals till further directions are
issued by this Court, after hearing all parties. Except
permitting field trials in certain specific cases, the orders
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dated 1 May, 2006 and 22 September, 2009 were not
substantially modified by the Court. As of 2007, nearly 91
varieties of plants, i.e., GMOs, were being subjected to open
field tests, though in terms of the orders of this Court, no
further open field tests were permitted nor had the GEAC
granted any such approval except with the authorization of
this Court. This has given rise to serious controversies before
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this Court as to whether or not the field tests of GMOs should
be banned, wholly or partially, in the entire country. It is
obvious that such technical matters can hardly be the subject
matter of judicial review. The Court has no expertise to
determine such an issue, which, besides being a scientific
question, would have very serious and far-reaching
consequences.
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3. Nevertheless, this Court, vide its order dated 8 May,
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2007, lifted the moratorium on open field trials, subject to the
conditions stated in that order, including a directive in regard
to the maintenance of 200 metres isolation distance while
performing field tests of GMOs. A further clarification was
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introduced vide order of this Court dated 8 April, 2008,
whereby all concerned were directed to comply with the
specific protocol of Level Of Detection of 0.01 per cent.
4. The controversy afore-referred still persisted and further
applications were filed. Amongst others, I.A. No. 32 of 2011
was also filed. The prayers, in all the aforesaid applications,
related to imposition of an absolute ban on GMOs in the
country and appointment of an Expert Committee whose
advice might be sought on these issues. Due to non-
adherence to specified protocol and in face of the report of one
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of the independent Experts, Dr. P.M. Bhargava, who was
appointed to meet with the GEAC by the orders of this Court
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dated 30 April, 2009, the Government, on its own, imposed a
complete ban on Bt Brinjal.
5. In I.A. No. 32 of 2011, besides making prayers as noticed
above, the Minutes of the meeting of the Ministry of
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Environment and Forests, Union of India dated 15 March,
2011 where even the petitioners had participated was also
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annexed. In these Minutes, the composition of the Expert
Committee as well as the terms of reference was suggested.
The learned Additional Solicitor General appearing for the
Union of India had initially taken time to seek instructions, if
any, for further modifications, as suggested by the learned
counsel appearing for the petitioner, to be made to the
constitution of the Committee. Later, it was stated before us
that the Government prayed only for constitution of the
Committee as well as the terms of reference, exactly as
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proposed in its Minutes dated 15 March, 2011, without any
amendments.
6. We heard the learned counsel appearing for the different
parties at some length. They all were ad idem on the
constitution of the Expert Committee and the terms of
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reference as suggested in the Minutes of the Ministry’s
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meeting dated 15 March, 2011 and jointly prayed for its
implementation. However, then it was submitted on behalf of
the petitioner, respondent and other intervenors that before
taking a final view and submitting its Report to this Court, the
Committee may hear them. In view of the above, we pass the
following consented order, primarily and substantially with
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reference to the Minutes dated 15 March, 2011: -
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(1) There shall be the Technical Expert Committee,
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constitution whereof shall be as follows:
Prof. V.L. Chopra
a.
Specialization/Work Focus:Plant Biotechnology Genetics
and Agricultural Science. Former Member, Planning
Commission and Former Member, Science & Advisory
Committee to the PMO, Recepient of several awards
including the Padma Bhushan.
b. Dr. Imran Siddiqui
Specialization/Work Focus : Plant Development Biology
Scientist & Group Leader, Centre for Cellular &
Molecular Biology (CCMB)
c. Prof. P.S. Ramakrishnan
Emeritus Prof. JNU
Work Focus : Environmental Sciences and Biodiversity.
d. Dr. P.C. Chauhan, D.Phil (Sci)
Work Focus : Genetics toxicology and food safety
e. Prof. P.C. Kesavan
Distinguished Fellow, MS SRF (Research Foundation),
Emeritus Professor, CSD, IGNOU, New Delhi.
Work Focus : Genetics Toxicology, Radiation Biology and
Sustainable Science.
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f. Dr. B. Sivakumar
Former Director, National Institute of Nutrition (NIN),
Hyderabad.
(2) The terms of reference of the said Committee shall be as
follows:
a. To review and recommend the nature of sequencing of risk
assessment ( environment and health safety) studies that
need to be done for all GM crops before they are released
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into the environment.
b. To recommend the sequencing of these tests in order to
specify the point at which environmental release though
Open Field Trials can be permitted.
c. To advise on whether a proper evaluation of the genetically
engineered crop/plants is scientifically tenable in the green
house conditions and whether it is possible to replicate the
conditions for testing under different agro ecological regions
and seasons in greenhouse?
d. To advise on whether specific conditions imposed by the
regulatory agencies for Open Field Trials are adequate. If
not, recommend what additional measures/safeguards are
required to prevent potential risks to the environment.
e. Examine the feasibility of prescribing validated protocols
and active testing for contamination at a level that would
preclude any escaped material from causing an adverse
effect on the environment.
f. To advise on whether institutions/laboratories in India have
the state-of-art testing facilities and professional expertise
to conduct various biosafety tests and recommend
mechanism to strengthen the same. If no such institutions
are available in India, recommend setting up an
independent testing laboratory/institution.
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g. The Expert Committee would be free to review reports or
studies authored by national and international scientists if
it was felt necessary. The petitioners opined that they
would like to formally propose three Expert Reports from
Prof. David Andow, Prof. Jack Heinemann and Dr. Doug
Gurian Sherman to be a formal part of the Committee’s
deliberations. The MoEF may similarly nominate which
experts they choose in this exercise.
3. The Court will highly appreciate if the said Committee
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submits its final report to the Court within three months from
today.
4. The Committee may hear the Government, petitioners
and any other intervenor in this petition, who, in the opinion
of the Committee, shall help the cause of expeditious and
accurate finalization of its report.
5. In the event and for any reason whatsoever, the
Committee is unable to submit its final report to the Court
within the time stipulated in this order, we direct that the
Committee should instead submit its interim report within the
same period to the Court on the following issue: “Whether
there should or should not be any ban, partial or otherwise,
upon conducting of open field tests of the GMOs? In the event
open field trials are permitted, what protocol should be
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followed and conditions, if any, that may be imposed by the
Court for implementation of open field trials.”
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7. Let the matter stand over to 6 August, 2012.
….…………......................CJI.
(S.H. Kapadia)
…….…………......................J.
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(A.K. Patnaik)
...….…………......................J.
(Swatanter Kumar)
New Delhi
May 10, 2012
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