NEW DELHI - Superior Court of the India temporarily banned the production and sale of a pesticide widely used in the country if its effects on humans and wildlife can be studied.
Endosulfan causes nerve lesions and is prohibited in 80 countries, while others have announced know in the next few years. India produces about 70 percent of the supply world to combat pests on fruit, vegetables, tea, coffee, cotton and other crops.
The Supreme Court ordered a period of two months ban countrywide Friday and ordered an expert report within eight weeks on how pesticides affect people and the environment.
The Court acted on a petition filed by a political group in the State of Kerala, citing an increase in deaths and birth defects in State Kasargode district where endosulfan by air sprayed on the harvest of cashew nuts.
The Government of the State of Kerala, which supports the petitioners, said dozens of people died and hundreds were born with deformities in Kasargode, where aerial spraying was made more than 20 years.
Sarosh Homi Kapadia Chief Justice ordered the Government to bring together a group of experts to study the endosulfan and recommend whether it should be banned entirely or gradually.
Representatives from 127 countries which met in Geneva last month agreed adding endosulfan to the list of the United Nations to pollutants and set a deadline of 2012 for final use of the pesticide.
But, in India, one of the biggest users of the world of endosulfan, ripped off a period of 11 years phase-out saying that it would give its researchers time to develop safer alternatives.
Indian farmers are opposed to a ban on endosulfan that they say is a pesticide cheap and easily available. Their argument has been supported by manufacturers of pesticides big who argue that the anti-endosulfan campaign is driven by multinational chemical.
However, the Court said that did not want other damages to people or the environment for the continuation of the use of the pesticide.
"We are not a single child to suffer" the dangers posed by endosulfan, Press Trust of India quoted Justice Kapadia said.
The Court said that if the Committee of experts concluded endosulfan was not hazardous could be lifted the ban.
Endosulfan is already banned in the United States, the European Union and the Australia.
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