The petition reads, “The Ministry of Environment and Forestry issued a notification citing the provisions of Section 6, 8 and 25 of the ‘Environment (Protection) Act’ and brought into existence a Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, despite the fact that the scope of the Environment Protection Act or the GoI allocation of business rules or the Constitution did not in any way provide for formation or regulation of any such bodies.”

The petitioner further mentioned, “The Ministry of Environment also has no financial allocation or budget for the said committees; it also has no expertise and/or even relevant expert people to head such highly technical body where all members are by invitation who come for a few hours every two months. The invites to the virtual and temporary body of GEAC are not even asked to declare the conflict of interest. Even the Member Secretary of GEAC is having qualification and doctorate in Geology and not Genetics. She obtained her Ph.D. in ‘Adsorption studies on uptake of heavy metals by sediment components,’ and her Masters degree in, Applied Earth Science.”

“The 1989 rules under which GEAC functions have been made operational despite the fact that the principal Act, namely, The Environment (Protection) Act, did not even had the remotest scope for such rules. The rules have been made in utter violation of The Environment Act, Article 246 of the Constitution, Allocation of Business Rules, and other such provisions. On 23rd of August 2007, the Ministry of Environment and Forest issued another notification, S.O. 1519(E) under the Environment Protection Act vide which the Ministry did away with the necessary requirement of seeking approval and labelling requirements for companies selling, distributing or supplying edible or other products, food stuffs, ingredients in food stuffs and additives including processing aids which used genetically modified/engineered organisms or cells for its production/manufacturing,”