ARUNA RODRIGUES AND ORS.versusUNION OF INDIA AND ORS.

                    [2012] 4 S.C.R. 553


             ARUNA RODRIGUES AND ORS.                         A
                               V.
               UNION OF INDIA AND ORS.
           (Writ Petition (Civil) No. 260 of 2005)

                        MAY 10, 2012
                                                              B
        [S.H. KAPADIA, CJI, A.K. PATNAIK AND
               SWATANTER KUMAR, JJ.]

    Environmental Laws:

      Public health - Bio-safety concern - Release of
                                                              c
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMS) - PIL - Prayer for
issuance of direction to Union of India to stop release of GMOs
into the environment by way of import, manufacture, use or any
other manner and to prescribe protocol, to which all GMOs
released would be subjected and for framing rules in that D
regard - Supreme court directed the constitution of Technical
Expert Committee as well as terms of reference as suggested
in the Minutes of the Ministry's meeting dated 15th March,
2011 - Committee is directed to submit its final report within
3 months and in the event the committee is not able to submit E
its final report within the stipulated time, the Committee is
directed to submit its interim report regarding issue as to
whether there should be any ban, partial or otherwise, upon
conducting of open field tests of GMOs and in the event of
permitting open field trials, what should be protocol in that F
regard.

    CIVIL ORIGINAL JURISDICTION : Writ Petition (Civil) No.
260 of 2005 etc.

    Under Article 32 of the Constitution of India.            G

                            WITH

W.P. (C) No. 115 of 2004.
                             553                              H
    554      SUPREME COURT REPORTS                  [2012] 4 S.C.R.


A       Contempt Petition (C) No. 295 of 2007 in W.P. (C) No.
    260 of 2005.

         Prashant Bhushan, Sumeet Sharma, Rohit Kumar Singh,
    Shashank Singh, Kamini Jaiswal, Sanjay Parikh, Mamta
    Saxena, A.N. Singh, Bushra Parveen, Anitha, Shenoy for the
8
    Petitioners.

      H.P. Rawal, ASG, T.A. Khan, Kiran Bharadwaj, B.K.
  Prasad, S.N. Terdal, Anil Katiyar, S. Hariharan, Jitendra Mohan
  Sharma, Abhijat P. Medh, Srikkala Gurukrishna Kumar, Kamini
C Jaiswal, Vijendra Kumar, Shaikh Chand Saheb, Subramonium
  Prasad for the Respondents.

          The Order of the Court was delivered by

                               ORDER
D
          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, raising bio safety concerns, is developing
E 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,
F 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
G 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

H
 ARUNA RODRIGUES AND ORS. v. UNION OF INDIA 555
      AND ORS. [SWATANTER KUMAR, J.]
frame relevant rules in this regard and ensure its                      A
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              8
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             C
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        D
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      E
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.                                                           F

     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               G
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.

     4. The controversy afore-referred still persisted and further      H
    556      SUPREME COURT REPORTS                   [2012] 4 S.C.R.


A 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
B protocol and in face of the report of one of the independent
  Experts, Dr. P.M. Bhargava, who was appointed to meet with
  the GEAC by the orders of this Court dated 30th April, 2009,
  the Government, on its own, imposed a complete ban on Bt
  Brinjal.
c       5. In I.A. No. 32 of 2011, besides making prayers as
  noticed above, the Minutes of the meeting of the Ministry of
  Environment and Forests, Union of India dated 15th March,
  2011 where even the petitioners had participated was also
  annexed. In these Minutes, the composition of the Expert
D 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
E 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 proposed in its
  Minutes dated 15th March, 2011, without any amendments.

F     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 reference
  as suggested in the Minutes of the Ministry's meeting dated
  15th March, 2011 and jointly prayed for its implementation.
G 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 reference to the Minutes
H dated 15th March, 2011: -
ARUNA RODRIGUES AND ORS. v. UNION OF INDIA 557
     AND ORS. [SWATANTER KUMAR, J.)
    (1) There shall be the Technical Expert Committee, the   A
constitution whereof shall be as follows:

     a. Prof. V.L. Chopra

           Specialization/Work Focus:Plant Biotechnology
           Genetics and Agricultural Science. Former         B
           Member, Planning Commission and Former
           Member, Science & Advisory Committee to the
           PMO, Recepient of several awards including the
           Padma Bhushan.

     b.    Dr. lmran Siddiqui
                                                             c
           Specialization/Work Focus : Plant Development
           Biology

           Scientist & Group Leader, Centre for Cellular &   D
           Molecular Biology (CCMB)

     c.    Prof. P.S. Ramakrishnan

           Emeritus Prof. JNU
                                                             E
          Work Focus : Environmental Sciences and
          Biodiversity.

     d.    Dr. P.C. Chauhan, D.Phil (Sci)

          Work Focus : Genetics toxicology and food safety   F

     e.    Prof. P.C. Kesavan

          Distinguished Fellow, MS SRF (Research
          Foundation), Emeritus Professor, CSD, IGNOU,       G
          New Delhi.

          Work Focus : Genetics Toxicology, Radiation
          Biology and Sustainable Science.

     f.    Dr. 8. Sivakumar                                  H
    558        SUPREME COURT REPORTS                  (2012] 4 S.C.R.


A                Former Director, National Institute of Nutrition (NIN),
                 Hyderabad.

          (2)    The terms of reference of the said Committee shall
                 be as follows:

B         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 into the environment.

c         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
D                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?

E         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.
F
          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.

G         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,
H
 ARUNA RODRIGUES AND ORS. v. UNION OF INDIA 559
      AND ORS. [SWATANTER KUMAR, J.]

             recommend setting up an independent testing              A
             laboratory/institution.

        g.   The Expert Committee would be free to review
             reports or studies authored by national and
             international scientists if it was felt necessary. The   8
             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                  C
             similarly nominate which experts they choose in this
             exercise.

       3. The Court will highly appreciate if the said Committee
submits its final report to the Court within three months from
~~.                                                                   D
      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.                                           E

      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         F
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 followed and conditions,
if any, that may be imposed by the Court for implementation of
open field trials."                                                   G

       7. Let the matter stand over to 6th August, 2012.
D.G.                                           Matter adjourned.

                                                                      H