Supreme Court to hear a plea concerning ban of harmful pesticides on April 28.

The Supreme Court of India heard a plea regarding the decision to ban 27 pesticides identified as health hazards by an expert committee. The Central government’s recent notification to ban 27 harmful pesticides instead of three, as proposed in a notification on 16th February 2023, was addressed by the Supreme Court. After hearing the contentions of the petitioner (KV Biju), All India Organizing Secretary (Swadeshi Andolan), and program director of Sustainable Food System for New Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment (Amit Khurana), the Supreme Court mentioned the case for next hearing on April 28, 2023. 

In May 2020, the Central government proposed the ban of 27 harmful pesticides which were identified as health hazards by an expert committee. However, on February 16 a draft notification was published by the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare that claimed the decision to ban 27 as “fit to be banned”. Further, it was determined that a total of 66 pesticides were identified for banning to protect the farmers and consumers of the country. During the hearing, KV Biju said, “The list was submitted to the central government, which started the reviewing by the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation through an expert committee in August 2013.” He further added, “The review started in 2013, but instead of taking action, the government keeps reappointing committees, which could be to dilute the essence of the pesticides.” 

The Supreme Court of India, on 23 January asked for an updated status report from the Centre to regulate the ban on hazardous pesticides. Further, Amit Khurana stated that, “First issue is the time duration taken to take the review decisions. Moreover, the list of hazardous chemicals is shrinking. From 66, it has been reduced to 27, and only three have been actually banned.” He further added that there is need to understand what resulted in the change of heart of the Government, “Science does not evolve such that harmful pesticides may become less toxic over the years. Or does it mean that the judgments made by the experts were poor during the review?”The top Court then listed the matter to be heard on April 28 with appropriate reasons on which grounds the Central Government was taking decisions.

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