ARUNA RODRIGUES Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(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, 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 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.

(2.) This Court, vide its order dated 1st 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 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 and instead, vide order dated 22nd 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 dated 1st May, 2006 and 22nd 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 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.

(3.) Nevertheless, this Court, vide its order dated 8th May, 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 introduced vide order of this Court dated 8th April, 2008, whereby all concerned were directed to comply with the specific protocol of Level Of Detection of 0.01 per cent.