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SC bench to hear pleas against commercial cultivation of GM mustard
A bench comprising justices Abhay S Oka, Sudhanshu Dhulia and Ujjal Bhiuyan, set the dates for the hearing to April 15 and 16.
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A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court will begin hearing next month a clutch of petitions challenging the permission given for commercial cultivation of genetically modified (GM) mustard, after the approval granted by the Centre for its environmental release ended up in a split verdict by the top court in July 2024.
“Files are too many in this case. Once we sit, we will continue and finish off the hearing. We don’t want any discontinuation in the hearing of the case,” a bench comprising justices Abhay S Oka, Sudhanshu Dhulia and Ujjal Bhiuyan said, while setting the dates for the hearing to April 15 and 16.
The court was dealing with a bundle of petitions, spearheaded by NGO Gene Campaign, the Research Foundation for Science Technology and environmental activist Aruna Rodrigues, that raised concerns over the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC)’s approval to the environmental release of a GM mustard hybrid, specifically the “DMH-11” variety, for seed production and testing before potential commercial release in October 2022.
On July 23, 2024, justices BV Nagarathna and Sanjay Karol had directed the Union government to come up with a national policy on stringent and transparent bio-safety protocols with regard to GMOs, while justice BV Nagarathna quashed the government’s decision to allow the environmental release of GM mustard crop DMH-11 on grounds of lack of effective consultation and disregard of the principles of public trust doctrine.
Referring to the split judgment, the petitions said that although it differed on the conclusions with regard to grant of approval to the open air release of GM mustard, they had agreed on several issues, which are not mentioned in the common order issued pursuant to their decision.
On Thursday, the bench directed the lawyers appearing on both sides to prepare a common compilation for documents and judgments to make it convenient for the bench to refer.
In the July 2024 order, justice Nagarathna flagged the flaws in the procedure adopted to approve DMH-11 and its failure to account for the health and environmental impact. Justice Karol, on the other hand, had upheld the GEAC decision with a rider that the field trial of GM mustard should be carried out under strict monitoring to prevent contamination.
Appearing for the Union government, attorney general R Venkataramani, solicitor general Tushar Mehta and additional solicitor general (ASG) Aishwarya Bhati informed the court that pursuant to the last judgment, discussions are going on at the highest level.
On the issues raised by the previous bench, the bench asked AG, “Are you trying to find out a solution to this issue?”
Venkataramani said, “It is difficult to find a solution. But we can try to iron out creases. We have been having discussions at the highest level of the government. It will take some more time.”
AG then sought adjournment for the day as he was required in another court.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, who appeared for one of the petitioners, suggested that since a special bench has been constituted after a very long time, the court may begin hearing the petitioners and the Centre could be heard on the next date of hearing.
The court pointed out that even if the hearing begins, it cannot be concluded this month. The court is closed for the coming week due to Holi. “The week after the vacations, we are sitting in special benches,” the bench said while directing all documents in the case to be filed a week before the next date of the hearing.
Currently, India has permitted only one GM crop – Bt cotton for commercial cultivation. In 2023, the Centre had sowed GM mustard crop, DMH-11 at 8 designated sites of Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) prior to its release into the environment. The Centre has since requested the court to carry out further research on GM mustard but the court has kept this application pending to decide the issue comprehensively, without restricting the matter to GM mustard alone.
Data presented by Centre to the top court has underlined the need to go for GM mustard as the total edible oil demand of India was 24.6 million tonnes (MT) for 2020-21 with the domestic procurement limited to just 11.1 MT. In 2020-21, edible oil import went up to 13.45 MT (54%) of the total edible oil demand, and by 2022-23, this figure jumped to 55% at 155.33 lakh tonnes.
In a document filed last year by Centre before the two-judge bench, it was stated, “As India is importing and consuming oil derived from GM crops, opposition to such technology based on such unfounded fears of adverse impact is only hurting farmers, consumers and industry.”
The government said that the hybrid DMH-11 is herbicide tolerant that provides effective weed control. Currently, the annual economic loss of crops due to weeds in India is 11 billion USD and the annual value of herbicide currently used in the country is ₹4,500 crore.
It even hinted at a possible vested interest behind the challenge to the GEAC approval, by saying, “There are certain elements sponsored by those who are importing tonnes of the same edible oil into India and do not want India to be self-sufficient and self-reliant in production of this basic food ingredient used by common man.” The note by Centre pointed out that India imports about 55,000 MT of canola oil produced largely from GM canola seeds and about 2.8 lakh tons of imported soybean oil every year is produced from GM soybean.
