Taking into consideration the contractual obligations of the manufacturers of Endosulfan Supreme Court on September 30^th Friday has allowed the export of 1090.596 tonnes of endosulfan. The ban imposed on the production of the pesticide  will continue  as the same is not taken away by this order. A three judge bench comprising Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justices K.S.Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar  issued this direction after  examining the report by an expert committee which indicated an export order for 1734 tonnes of endosulfan ‘technical’ and ‘292.5 KL of formulation’,  that the manufactures were holding. The Court instructed that enough precaution had to be taken in packaging the banned pesticides for its safe export and directed the customs, Insecticide Board and excise authorities to monitor the packaging and transport of the consignment to the concerned ports.

Based on the writ petition filed by the Democratic Youth Federation of India, the court had earlier on May 13^th banned the production of endosulfan in the country and had directed the authorities to freeze the licenses granted to the manufacturers until further order is passed. The licences and permits of endosulfan were restored by the latest order given by the court on 30^th Friday. The matter had been posted for further hearing on 10^th October.

Supreme Court allows export of Endosulfan

Report by Lydia Chitra Jacob