Herbicide tolerant? Govt of India perpetrating 'falsehood' on Delhi varsity’s GM mustard

By Kavitha Kuruganti* 

After nearly 20 long years of hearings in a batch of petitions questioning India’s regulatory regime with regard to GMOs, the Supreme Court of India delivered a split verdict from a 2-judge Bench. The Bench refused to conclude whether Delhi University’s GM mustard is herbicide tolerant or not. The Coalition for a GM-Free India responded by asking the Government of India to begin implementing the common observations and conclusions of both the Hon’ble Judges on the Bench, even as other matters go to a larger Bench to be constituted by the Chief Justice of India. 

The Coalition pointed out that the Supreme Court has the 5-independent members’ Technical Expert Committee recommendations to guide it, since it is after all Court-appointed, consensus committee, where the Government’s two experts along with the petitioner-recommended experts gave a unanimous report on the Terms of Reference assigned to them. 

Concerned citizens and experts of India now await the constitution of the larger Bench and the next round of proceedings to begin. The Coalition welcomes the order that the government organise public consultations preferably within the next 4 months for a national policy to be formulated on the subject. The Coalition calls upon ordinary citizens, experts, farmers organisations, beekeepers, consumer rights and environmental groups and other stakeholders to participate in large numbers in the public consultations ordered by the Court, and also asked state governments to take the opportunity to present considered views keeping public interest foremost. 

The Coalition welcomed the observations and conclusions of Justice Nagarathna. Justice Nagarathna, the senior Judge on the Bench concluded that the processing of the application and approval of GM mustard was violative of Article 21, of the Precautionary Principle, of the doctrine of public trust and was ignoring the recommendations of the SC Technical Expert Committee etc. She concluded that GM mustard approval infringes on Inter-Generational Equity. She pointed out that the Expert Committee appointed in 2022 gave diametrically opposite views to that of another Committee and relied on foreign studies while dipping into scientific literature, as an illustration. 

While Justice Sanjay Karol did not find any manifest arbitrariness or capriciousness, or non-application of mind in GM mustard application processing, or anything unlawful about GEAC Rules and its functioning, he also stated in his conclusions that human health tests are required as part of risk assessment and decision-making, and sought independent studies to be conducted. 

He said that study reports need to be uploaded, and public participation in decision-making enabled. Justice Karol also commented on the need for state-of-the-art laboratories and other required infrastructure to be set up. The Bench concluded that judicial review of various regulatory decisions and the regime is permissible. 

The Coalition now calls upon the Government to implement those conclusions and directions that are common to both the judges’ verdicts. Apart from asking for a national policy to be created through widespread public consultations with adequate publicity and with the involvement of state governments, both the judges asked for statutory Rules to be created to mitigate conflict of interest. 

Human health tests are required as part of risk assessment and decision-making on GM mustard application processing

They also asked for all studies to be uploaded in the public domain, while the regulators have been refusing to do so despite earlier court orders to this effect. They asked for independent studies to be conducted, and talked about compliance to Sec.23 of Food Safety and Standards Act 2006.

The Coalition also condemned the falsehoods perpetrated by the Government of India in and outside the Court, to mask the fact that Delhi University’s GM mustard is a herbicide tolerant crop, and hoped that this matter would get addressed unambiguously in future proceedings.

The Coalition also asks all citizens of India and state governments to participate in the public consultations, to ensure that various matters of public interest are fully addressed by the Government of India in any policy that it formulates now on this subject including on:

• Farmers’ seed sovereignty
• Environmental sustainability and ecological security
• Human health
• Socio-Economic considerations like employment protection
• India’s trade security
• Consumer rights
• Precautionary Principle and Inter-generational equity
• State government’s constitutional authority over agriculture and health
• Protection of organic and natural farming in the country, and local germplasm
• Conservation of biodiversity
• Scientific and rigorous regulation of new gene technologies like genome editing
• Adherence to India’s commitments in the Cartagena Protocol which means a comprehensive statutory biosafety law, which ensures transparent, independent, scientific and accountable decision-making on all related aspects 

The Coalition asks the Government of India to make the consultations truly participatory, for deliberative democratic processes to shape the national policy, implementing this Order in letter and spirit.

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*Coalition for a GM-Free India