BT Cotton: Karnataka HC reserves order

Bengaluru: A special bench of the Karnataka High Court on Wednesday reserved its order on an appeal filed by the Association of Biotechnology-led Enterprises, an industry representative of agricultural biotechnology companies.

The companies had approached the court against the Central Government order fixing the maximum sale price of a 450 gram packet of the BG-I variety of Bt Cotton at Rs 635 and Rs 800 for the BG-II variety.

The companies said the central government order completely foreclosed the possibility of any trait value being charge for the BG-I variety and fixed the trait value for the BG-II variety at '49 per packet.

Initially, a single judge bench had stayed the order issued by the central government to cap the price of genetically modified (termed 'Bt') cotton seed.

Later, the high court had lifted the stay order following which the companies filed the appeal. A special bench of the High Court, headed by Justice S Abdul Nazeer, after hearing the appeal, has reserved it order.

It may be recalled that on March 8 the central government had cut the prices of genetically modified cotton seeds and slashed royalty fees by 74% on the ground that the technology has lost its efficacy in resisting certain pest attacks and hence royalty fees has to be reduced.

With that the Centre reduced the maximum sale price of genetically modified Bollgard II cotton seeds to Rs 800 (per 450 gram packet) from its earlier price of Rs 830-1,000. The sharpest cut was on royalty or trait fees, which was reduced 74%, from Rs 163 per packet to Rs 43 (excluding taxes).