Supreme Court asks Centre to submit endosulfan disposal plan

Sets deadline of July 23

The Supreme Court has asked the Centre to submit a disposal plan for the raw material used to manufacture endosulfan, Hexachlorocyclopentadiene (HCCP), an organochlorine compound. It is used in several pesticides.

The Supreme Court had given an interim order  to ban the use, manufacture, sale and export of endosulfan on May 13 last year. Exports were allowed in September and December last year.

The April 23 order came after the Pesticides Manufacturers and Formulators Association of India (PMFAI) pleaded with the court that they be allowed to manufacture endosulfan with the raw material that remains with the companies. The counsel for the PMFAI, Harish Salve, said that since India was already a signatory to the Stockholm Convention and had agreed to dispose of the pesticide, manufacture of the pesticide should be allowed and phase out be carried out according to the Convention. 

The bench, comprising chief justice S H Kapadia and justices A K Patnaik and Swatantar Kumar, however, seemed reluctant to allow the companies to manufacture endosulfan.

The court had allowed export of endosulfan  in December last year in an attempt to get rid of the stocks of the pesticides lying in the country. As per the court’s order, 1090.596 tonne of technical grade endosulfan has been exported. The court was informed that 1,300 KL of endosulfan formulation still remained in the stock with the companies.
The centre has also been asked to ascertain the exact quantity of raw material available with the three Endosulfan manufacturers—Hindustan Insecticides Limited, Excel Crop Care and Coromandel International Limited. The deadline for the Centre is July 23, 2012.