Deaths are occurring across the country due to use of pesticides in crops, Supreme Court seeks response from Center on petition

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday sought response from the Center and others on a plea claiming that excessive use of pesticides and other chemicals on crops and food items is leading to deaths across the country.

Answer sought from them including the center

A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Mishra issued notices to the Central Government, Agriculture Ministry, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and others seeking their response on the petition. Senior advocate Anita Shen told the court that the petitioner had collected data from across the country which showed a large number of deaths due to pesticides.

Petitioner's claim

The top court was hearing a petition filed by lawyer Akash Vashishtha. “The use and excessive use of pesticides and inorganic chemicals on crops and food items has emerged as the main and main cause of cancer and other fatal diseases in the country,” the plea said. These chemicals include pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and other inorganic chemicals.

Use and overuse of pesticides or inorganic substances is food pollution. It is a silent killer like air pollution. Once food or crops are contaminated with pesticides, their toxicity spreads rapidly throughout the food chain. Toxins and compounds present in food can neither be excreted nor rejected by the body after entering the human body.

what does the data say

Citing FSSAI data, the plea said that out of 72,499 food samples analyzed during 2015-16, 16,133 were found contaminated or misbranded. The petition said authorities registered 1,450 criminal and 8,529 civil cases, of which 540 resulted in convictions. During 2016-17, out of 78,340 samples, 18,325 samples were found contaminated or misbranded. A total of 13,080 cases were registered, of which 1,605 people were convicted.

161 people died in 3 states of the country

The petition said that despite the matter being so serious, the Central Government and its officials have completely failed to prevent, control and reduce the increasing incidents of use and overuse of pesticides. Citing figures in the petition, it has been said that in 2020-21, 161 people died due to pesticide poisoning in three out of eight states of the country (Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Kerala, Meghalaya, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Bengal). Went. Death came alone.