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

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

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 and sought their response to the petition. Senior advocate Anita Shenay told the court that the petitioner has collected data from across the country which shows a large number of deaths due to pesticides.

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

The 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. The toxic elements and compounds present in food can neither be taken out nor rejected by the body after entering the human body.

Citing FSSAI data, the petition said that out of 72,499 food samples analyzed during 2015-16, 16,133 were found to be contaminated or misbranded. The petition said authorities registered 1,450 criminal and 8,529 civil cases, of which 540 cases 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.

The petition states that despite the issue being so serious, the central government and its officials have completely failed to prevent, control, and reduce the increasing incidents of pesticide use and overuse. Quoting data in the petition, it has been said that in three of the eight states of the country (Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa Kerala, Meghalaya, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Bengal), 161 people died due to pesticide poisoning in 2020-21.