Calling out the regulatory silence on GM foods, the Rajasthan High Court has ordered the Centre to frame safety standards within six months. Hari S Narayanan takes a look at the High Court order in Kritesh Oswal vs Union of India and explains why this judicial intervention was the need of the hour. Hari S Narayanan is a PhD candidate at the Inter University Centre for IPR Studies (IUCIPRS), Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT).
The End of the Regulatory Lacunae? Analyzing the Rajasthan High Court’s Definitive Mandate on GM Food Safety
By Hari S Narayanan
On October 13, 2025, the Rajasthan High Court delivered a significant judgment in Kritesh Oswal S/O Sohan Lal vs Union Of India. The Division Bench (DB), comprising the Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma and Justice Sanjeet Purohit, addressed the alarming regulatory vacuum regarding Genetically Modified (GM) foods in India and directed the central government to notify the standards and safety protocols for GM food articles within six months. In this post, I’ll look at the issues raised before the Court in the PIL, what the judgement has to say on the government’s omission, and where it falls short in addressing the issues completely.
No Laws for GMs?
As per Section 22 of the Food Safety and Standards Act, ‘no permission or approval could be legally granted for the sale, manufacturing, import, or distribution of GM food in India without the regulations by the central government, mandated under the Act’. The PIL by Kritesh Oswal (petitioner) pointed out that no such regulations have been notified by the central government but still GM edible oils are imported in India. The petitioner submitted that in the absence of these regulations, prior approvals which were granted for GM food would be invalid. The PIL thus sought the urgent need for these regulations to be framed. It also sought to strike down Rule 6 (7) of the Legal Metrology Rules, 2011, which mandated that GM foods packaging must contain a disclaimer- “GM” on the labels. The PIL stated that in absence of any regulations required under Section 22, the GM food’s sale or distribution itself is illegal, therefore, the provision for GM labels cannot be sustained. The petitioner also submitted that the presence of GM edible products in the Indian market without proper safety regulations and protocols violates Article 21 of the Constitution, as the Right to Life encompasses the Right to Food Safety.
The Respondents, Union of India and Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) contended that import of GM edible oil was duly authorized. They explained that in relation to GM organisms, the aspect of environmental safety falls within the domain of the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), whereas the aspect of food safety falls within the domain of FSSAI. Previously, GM food items were exempted from the purview of the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) through the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (MoEF&CC)’s Notification No. S.O. 1519(E) dated August 23, 2007. However, the inability of FSSAI to frame the guidelines regulating GM foods resulted in MoEF&CC issuing supplemental notifications from time to time to keep the former notification in abeyance and GEAC continued to deal with the applications for approval with regard to GM foods. They also justified rule 6(7) as being merely an enabling provision, which neither permits nor prohibits the activities concerning GM products and is not ultra vires to the Act of 2006. They also informed the Court that a draft regulation (Food Safety and Standards (Genetically Modified Foods) Regulations, 2022) was published on November 18, 2022, inviting suggestions from stakeholders, but the final notification had not yet been issued.
Directions to Immediately Notify the Standards
The Court unequivocally affirmed that the continued absence of a regulatory mechanism for Genetically Modified (GM) food violates the right to food recognized as a part of the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. Section 22 of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 mandates the Central Government (thereby FSSAI) to notify the necessary regulations and the Court found the inaction that extended over two decades deprived citizens of their constitutional right to safe food.
In this regard, it is important to note that in Vandana Shiva Vs. Union of India, the government has admitted that any activity in connection with genetically modified and engineered food is permissible only after the regulations are framed under Section 22 of the Act of 2006. Apart from the statutory requirement, India, being signatory to United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD) (read with the Cartagena Protocol) is under an obligation to provide a specific statutory regime. Also, the issue pertaining to the need for regulations for sale, manufacture, distribution or import of GM articles of food has been highlighted on various occasions even in the Parliamentary Standing Committee Reports (which can be accessed here). Despite these obligations and directives, no such standards have been framed yet.
Coming back to the judgement, the Court agreed with the petitioner’s contention for the urgent need for regulations to be framed under Section 22 of the Food Standard and Safety Act. On the supplemental notifications allowing GEAC to regulate GM foods, it was observed that the last supplemental notification expired on 31st March 2016 and thus there was no notification or regulation that governed GM crops presently. Consequently, the Court held that no permission or approval for GM food could be granted in the absence of the regulations, as their formulation is a pre-requisite and sine qua non for granting any such approval under the statutory scheme. Regarding the validity of Rule 6(7), the Court upheld that the rule was consistent with the labelling requirements of the Food Standard and Safety Act of 2006 and was merely an informational provision.
On the requirement for standards under Section 22, the Court directed that the FSSAI and the Union of India must immediately notify the standards and safety protocols for GM food articles, preferably within six months. The Court also restrained FSSAI and GEAC from granting any permission for the sale, manufacture, distribution, or import of GM/genetically engineered food items in India until these regulations are framed. To prevent the entry of GM food, the Court directed that no food items should be imported in India unless a “GM free” certification and label are present on them.
The direction to urgently notify the standard is the need of the hour, as per a report published by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in 2018, among the 65 food samples tested, 32% were found to be GM positive. The report states that 46% of the imported food samples and 17% of the domestic food samples contained GMOs, and that three brands claiming to be “GM-free” were found to be false (the report can be accessed here). These concerns about the increasing number of GM food available in the Indian market are exacerbated in light of on-going Free Trade Agreement negotiations with countries historically known for their GM food industries (see here and here).
Additionally, the government’s own admission about how supplemental notifications doesn’t tackle the core issues and challenges regarding the regulation of GM foods clubbed with the fact that last of such notification expired in 2016 raises concerns about how were GM foods regulated over the last 9 years? On this, the petitioner did suggest that the Court should direct to remove all the existing GM foods. However, the judgement is silent on this issue.
In this regard, while the judgement rightly seeks to address the lacuna by directing the government to notify the standards within 6 months, it does not offer any respite against last 9 years where seemingly GM food items were available in the market without any standards or regulations in place. Shouldn’t the government be held accountable for this omission? Unfortunately, the judgement seems to fall short in this regard.