Raghunath Anant Mashelkar has resigned as the chairman of the technical expert group (TEG) on patent laws to make way for other members of the group to take an independent view on the "technical inaccuracies" that have "inadvertently" crept into its controversial December 2006 report. |
Mashelkar, who retired as director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research about three months ago, told Business Standard that he had put in his papers on 15 March in the wake of a "personalised attack" against him that questioned his integrity, competence and motives. |
He wants the report to be made error-free by remaining members of the committee including Madhav Menon of the National Law School, University Grants Commission Vice-chairman Mulchand Sharma, International Council of Scientific Union president Govardhan Mehta and former Jawaharlal Nehru University Vice-chancellor Ashish Dutta. |
"It is only fair to be away from a decision making process when people express motives or doubts in your action. I am no more a public servant. As far as I am concerned, I am off with it," Mashelkar added. |
Ever since the TEG report came out on 29 December 2006, the Left parties and public interest groups like the National Working Group on Patent Laws have been alleging that the report was biased in favour of multinational companies. Later, portions of the reports were found to have been taken from an international report, prompting Mashelkar to withdraw the report for rectifying the inaccuracies. Mashelkar's resignation and complete dissociation with TEG has come at a time when the government finally allowed TEG to rectify the mistakes. |
Mashelkar's resignation came a day after the Left parties alleged that vital portions of the report were an "act of plagiarism and cheating" and were aimed at protecting the interest of multinationals. CPI(M) leaders had wanted the Mashelkar report to be rejected and felt that the TEG had "gone beyond its terms of reference". |
The TEG was set up to examine the compatibility of the TRIPS (trade related intellectual property rights) agreement of World Trade Organisation (WTO) with the Indian patent laws that limited the grant of patents to only new discoveries and not to new uses of old discoveries. It was also asked to examine whether it would be compatible with the TRIPS to exclude micro-organisms from patenting. |