Is it a ploy to expand export business?
The Pesticides Manufacturers and Formulators Association of India (PMFAI) have filed an interim application in the Supreme Court, seeking permission to export the existing stocks of endosulfan formulations in their possession. The respondents said they have 2,698.56 kilo litres of formulations and wanted to export it after making it into exportable form and repackaging it for exporters. Earlier, the court had allowed them to export technical grade endosulfan for which export orders had been received prior to the court-ordered ban of May 13.
The three judge bench comprising chief justice S H Kapadia, justice Swatantar Kumar and justice K S P Radhakrishnan observed they definitely were not going to allow endosulfan use in India, but that if there were other countries interested, then they should be allowed to import it. However the Democratic Youth Federation of India, the petitioners in the case, intervened and said that this was just a ploy of the manufacturers to take more orders and expand business.
The PMFAI counsel and senior advocate Harish Salve told the court that this wasn't being done to increase export orders but to meet the export demand. The court had granted permission to export 1,090.596 tonnes of technical grade endosulfan, while the export orders are for 1,734 tonnes. The formulators have in their possession about 214.593 tonnes of technical grade endosulfan.
Apart from allowing formulations, through the interim application, PMFAI also pleaded with the court to allow the formulators who do not have export orders to channelise their stocks through the three manufacturers who have export orders and export them. The three manufacturers are Hindustan Insecticides Limited, Excel Crop Care Limited and Coromandel International Limited.
The bench has given a two week deadline for the central government and DYFI to respond to the interim application.
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