Intellectual Property Law

It’s an unlikely candidate for controversy, but the lowly brinjal is at the heart of a battle. The issues at stake: whether agricultural and pharmaceutical companies should share classified data (read: trade secrets) with the government and independent watchdogs. The two sides in this joust: the Indian partner of a US-based biotech firm that’s trying to ease in a new version of a genetically modified (GM) brinjal, on the one side, and the environmental group Greenpeace and, indirectly, the Central Information Commission (CIC), on the other.

Last month, the Maharashtra-based Mahyco, the Indian partner of US agro-biotech firm Monsanto, moved the Delhi High Court against a CIC order seeking details of the safety test data generated during clinical trials of its GM brinjal — the first GM edible crop that is to be introduced in India.

Greenpeace had first filed the suit against Mahyco two years ago, invoking the Right to Information (RTI) Act, asking for details about its safety. But the case, Greenpeace claims, has shown the other side of the RTI, which has been hailed as a revolutionary initiative in contemporary India.