Supreme Court criticized for giving clearance to Bt Brinjal
There is no stopping the Bt brinjal trials now. The supreme court on December 10 refused to stay Mahyco's (Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company's) ongoing trials in various parts of the country. Social activists Aruna Rodrigues and P V Satheesh had filed a petition against the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee in September 2007. The committee, under the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, had given the clearances for the large-scale field trials in August 2007.
The petitioners said the committee's approval of trials was in violation of supreme court rulings, which, among other things, had mandated an isolation distance of 200 m between Bt and non-Bt crops (see