BT COTTON SEED SELLERS FACE ARREST The Times of India November 23, 2001 NEW DELHI: A Gujarat court has issued arrest warrants against officials of the firm which is said to have sold transgenic cotton seeds to farmers without the mandatory permission from the Centre, say Union environment ministry officials pursuing a criminal complaint against the company. A two-man ministry team returned to Delhi Wednesday with this news. But the team could not meet state government officials - it was supposed to get feedback on the state's effort to implement a Central government order to procure the cotton crop still standing, process it, destroy the seed and store the lint, and retrieve what has reached the market, again destroying the seed and storing the lint. These orders came last month from the ministry's genetic engineering approval committee (GEAC), the lone sanctioning authority for even large-scale trials on GM crops. No GM crop has so far been authorised for commercial cultivation in India, with studies on environmental and health impacts yet to be completed. In this case, the company in question, Navbharat Seeds, did not even apply for any of the permissions needed, say officials. By all accounts, the state government doesn't seem to have got very far in retrieving this cotton, forcing ministry officials to admit most of the transgenic crop may not be recovered - and forcing them to look on this as an "educational" exercise. Nor has the environment ministry got feedback from any other state where the company is said to have sold the same seed - on the list are Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Maharashtra. --- 3.