Government Moves SC To Withdraw Its Order Against Commercial Cultivation of GM Mustard

The Centre on Tuesday, August 22, 2023, asked the Supreme Court to withdraw its oral undertaking of November 2022, where it stated that it won't go ahead with the commercial cultivation of Genetically Modified (GM) mustard in the country.

A bench comprising Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhauyan took into consideration the government's petition and issued notices to the petitioners who had filed a case in 2004. These included the Germany-based NGO, Gene Campaign, and a group of activists led by Aruna Rodrigues. 

The government stated that the undertaking given by its counsel on not taking the process forward was not aimed at stopping the entire process of research and testing.

Last year, the petitioners sought a temporary suspension on the commercial release of GM Mustard after it was cleared in October 2022 by the government. Thereafter, the SC asked the petitioners to maintain the current situation on the cultivation of mustard seeds and sought a status report from the government on the production of GM mustard. Now, the case will be taken up for hearing next week.

The government in its new application on August 22, 2023, told the SC that a post-release monitoring committee under the chairmanship of PK Chakrabarty (former member of the Agricultural Scientists Recruitment Board) did not report any resistance to stipulated conditions on the environmental release of the GM Mustard Hybrid, DMH-11. Moreover, it was noticed that the trial was in excellent condition and followed all the required agronomic practices.

The government added that the panel had noted no evidence to portray any legitimate scientific concern against the decision of conditional approval granted by the Centre.

 GM Mustard Hybrid, DMH-11

• DMH-11 is an indigenously developed transgenic mustard. It is a genetically modified variant of herbicide-tolerant (HT) mustard

• This is a result of a cross between the Indian mustard variety ‘Varuna’ and East European ‘Early Heera-2’ mustard

• It contains two alien genes (‘barnase’ and ‘barstar’)isolated from a soil bacterium called Bacillus amyloliquefaciens that enable breeding of high-yielding commercial mustard hybrids

• DMH-11 has shown approximately 28% more yield than the national check and 37 % more than the zonal checks and its use has been claimed and approved by the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC).