The bill was originaly presented in the Lok Sabha on 14th December
1999. It was referred to a joint committee of both Houses of
Parliament on 21st December 1999. A thirty member joint committee
under the chairmanship of Shri. Sahib Sing Verma redrafted the bill after
considering the views of many individuals, organisations and associations
on the subject. The salient features of the bill, which was approved by
Lok Sabha during early September 2001, are the following.
-
The bill envisages the establishment of a Plant Varieties and Farmer’s
Right Protection Authority to encourage the development of new varieties
of plants and to protect the right of the Farmers and breeders in India.
-
Under the above authority, registration of extant varieties (varieties
already existing including ‘farmers varieties’ and varieties notified under
section 5 of the seeds Act 1966) as well as ‘new varieties’ (means essentially
derived varieties’ which are originated from an ‘extant variety’ or ‘initial
variety’ through any method so as to carry essential characteristics so
that it can be distinguished form an ‘initial variety’) is possible only
if it conforms to the criteria of novelty, distinctiveness, uniformity
and stability.
-
There is position for documentation indexing and cataloging of farmer’s
varieties.
-
There is provision for compulsory cataloguing for all varieties of plants
available in India.
-
There is provision for compulsory licensing of such varieties if the
breeder of such varieties or any other person entitled to produce such
variety under the act does not arrange for production and sale of the seeds.
-
The bill ensures the maintenance of ‘National Register of Plant varieties’.
-
For the registration of a new variety it is essential that an affidavit
be sworn by the applicant to the effect that the variety does not contain
any gene or gene sequences including terminator technology.
-
The application for registration of new varieties should also contain
complete passport data of the parental lines including the contributions
of any farmer, village community, institutions or organisaitons in breeding,
evolution or developing that variety.
-
Farmers are entitled to compensation if the registered variety fails
to give the expected (notified) performance under given conditions.
-
In the application for registration of new varieties the breeders are
required to reveal the details of the involvement of farming group on the
evolution of an initial variety which was used for the development of the
new variety. In such cases the breeder has to share the benefits with those
farming groups through the operation of a National Gene Fund by the Authority.
Through the above Act, the Plant Breeders’ rights were protected for the
first time in India. The provisions of the Bill have much difference from
the UPOV model of 1991 where the emphasis of rights is in favour of the
breeder whereas the farmers’ rights are being emphasised in the Indian
Act. The chapter on compulsory licence, the provision for compensation
to farming communities for their contributions to the evolution of initial
varieties used for the development of new varieties, exemption of farmers
form registrations fees, provision for raising a National Gene Fund, the
benefit sharing system etc are some of the examples of the farmer oriented
provisions in the bill.
A major hurdle in the implementation of the Act will be the provision 18
(1) (e) under the Section –B which insist a complete passport data of the
parental lines from which a new variety has been evolved. It will be difficult
on the part of breeders to collect details on the geographical locations
from where the genetic material has been procured and the information relating
to the contribution of farming groups toward the evolution of such materials
because the germ plasm catalogues of most institutions carry scanty details
about these factors. This provision in the bill will definitely lead to
unnecessary litigations because any organised group of people can initiate
a never ending legal battle against the breeder on this issue. We can only
hope that necessary amendments will be brought later by the authorities
to loosen such knots in the Bill.
|