Supreme Court delivers spilt verdict on petitions challenging release of GM Mustard

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, July 23

The Supreme Court on Tuesday delivered a split verdict on petitions challenging the validity of the Centre’s 2022 decision on the environmental release of genetically modified (GM) Dhara Mustard Hybrid-11 (DMH-11) for seed production and testing.

The split verdict came from Bench of Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Sanjay Karol on petitions by activist Aruna Rodrigues and Gene Campaign seeking a moratorium on the release of any genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into the environment pending a comprehensive, transparent and rigorous biosafety protocol in public domain conducted by independent expert bodies.

They had challenged the October 18, 2022 decision of the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) – India’s regulator for genetically modified organisms — recommending environmental release and its subsequent decision on October 25, 2022 approving the environmental release of transgenic mustard hybrid DMH-11.

While Justice Nagarathna held that the October 18 and 25, 2022, decisions of the GEAC were vitiated as there was no member from the health department in the meeting and eight members were absent, Justice Karol concluded that the regulatory body’s decisions did not suffer from any manifest arbitrariness.

Justice Karol said field trials of the environmental release of GM Mustard must be conducted with strict safeguards.

The Bench directed the matter to be placed before Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud for referring it to an appropriate/larger Bench.

The two judges, however, unanimously directed the Centre to formulate a national policy on Genetically Modified crops and directed the environment ministry to undertake a consultation process with all the stakeholders and experts, preferably in four months before formulating a national policy on GM crops.