Bt Brinjal biopiracy case: Apex court restores PIL in Karnataka HC after nearly a decade

Subject : Science and Technology

What is the issue?

In 2012, Environment Support Group (ESG), a non-profit that works to mainstream environmental and social justice in decision-making, filed a PIL before the Karnataka High Court.
The PIL was about the seed of the Bt Brinjal, developed by the public-private partnership, which was created by accessing six varieties of indigenous brinjal seeds illegally.
The high court then transferred the petition to the National Green Tribunal.
After nearly a decade, the apex court has now restored the petition back to the high court after ESG challenged the move in the Supreme Court, stating that the NGT did not have the power to look into petitions challenging constitutional validity.

What is Biopiracy?

Biopiracy refers to the practice of commercially exploiting naturally occurring biochemical or genetic material, especially by obtaining patents that restrict its future use, while failing to pay fair compensation to the community from which it originates.

What the government has done-

In this decade, 231 more crops have been removed from the protection of piracy provided in Section 3 of the Biodiversity Act, bringing the total to 421.
This would imply that these plant species/varieties can be traded/exported without any prior permission from the authorities, leading to overexploitation of the resources.
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), in a 2009 notification, had listed 190 plants as Normally Traded Commodities (NTC).
15 of those plants had been classified as ‘threatened’ or ‘critically endangered’.
Stripping them of protection provided in Section 3 by listing them under Section 40 of the Biodiversity Act will prove detrimental to the existence of those plants.

Section 3 of the Biological Diversity Act 2002-

Certain persons not to undertake Biodiversity related activities without the approval of the National Biodiversity Authority.

No person referred to in sub-section (2) shall without previous approval of the National Biodiversity Authority, obtain any biological resource occurring in India or knowledge associated thereto for research or for commercial utilisation or for bio-survey and bio-utilisation.
The persons who shall be required to take the approval of the National Biodiversity Authority under sub-section (1) are the following, namely: —
a person who is not a citizen of India;
a citizen of India, who is a non-resident as defined in clause (30) of section 2 of the Income-tax Act, 1961;
a body corporate, association or organisation-
not incorporated or registered in India; or
incorporated or registered in India under any law for the time being in force which has any non-Indian participation in its share capital or management.

Section 40 of the act states:

Notwithstanding anything contained in this act, the central government may, in consultation with the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), by notification in the Official Gazette, declare that the provisions of this act shall not apply to any items, including biological resources normally traded as commodities.

How does the MoEF&CC decide on the varieties that should be removed from the Section 3 protection?

The act does not describe a criteria or procedure for exempting crops from the protection in Section 3 and including them in Section 40.
The act only mentions that the Union government has the power to make such exemptions.

Consequences-

If the trade of these species is unfettered, they may face extinction.
Garcinia imberti Bourd— an evergreen tree endemic to the Agastyamala forests of the Western Ghats — which was listed as threatened in 2012, is now critically endangered.
Chlorophytum borivilianum — a herb found in peninsular India — has moved from ‘near threatened’ to ‘critically endangered’.

BT- Brinjal-

The Bt Brinjal was developed by the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Dharwad, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu UAS, Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company (Mahyco) and Monsanto, along with Sathguru Management Consultants Private Ltd.
They developed it by accessing the germplasm of indigenous brinjal varieties- malpur, majarigota, kudachi, udupi, 112 GO and rabkavi– without obtaining any consent of local Biodiversity Management Committees, the State Biodiversity Board and the National Biodiversity Authority.
Bt Brinjal has been developed by inserting a gene cry1Ac from a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis through an Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer.
This genetically modified brinjal gives resistance against insects such as the Brinjal Fruit and Shoot Borer (Leucinodesorbonalis).
Once a fruit and shoot borer larva feeds on Bt brinjal plants, it injects the cry1Ac protein along with the plant tissue. It reacts with the alkaline in the insect gut, binding it to specific receptor proteins present in the membrane. It disrupts the insect’s digestive process, causing paralysis and eventually the death of the larvae.