KASARGOD: In what seems to be a deliberate attempt to mislead the Supreme Court, the DYFI, the youth wing of the CPM, clearly distorted the joint report of the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the WHO on endosulfan residues. The report was submitted to the Supreme Court in the case DYFI had filed in the apex court seeking a ban on endosulfan.The petitioner, T V Rajesh MLA, had stated in his affidavit on page 22 that “the averments and facts stated herein above are true to my knowledge and no part of it is false and nothing material has been concealed there from”.However, in gross violation of this sworn affidavit, the petitioner seems to have willfully misrepresented the crucial scientific information in the Supreme Court.Express had earlier reported that the DYFI in its petition to the Supreme Court had deliberately omitted some tables from the epidemiological report prepared by the Kozhikode Medical College on endosulfan spraying in Kasargod. It had also interpolated some data which was not in the original report.On page 19 of the petition, the petitioner had stated under oath that “…the Government of India has chosen to turn a blind eye towards the report of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations which had concluded that long term intake of residues of endosulfan from uses that have been considered by the JMPR is likely to present a public health concern”.According to the documents now available in the internet (FAO/WHO study on pesticide residues in Rome in 2006), the FAO-WHO report observed on page no. 131 that “the meeting concluded that long term intake of residues of endosulfan from uses that have been considered by the JMPR is ‘unlikely’ to present a public health concern.According to sources, it was evident that the DYFI in its petition had willfully distorted the crucial word ‘unlikely’ into ‘likely’ and obtained the interim ban order.According to legal sources, the crucial legal question was whether it was a deliberate and malafide action on the part of the petitioner to mislead the Supreme Court and will come under perjury.“Section 193 of the IPC says that whoever intentionally gives false evidence in any stage of a judicial proceeding, or fabricates false evidence for the purpose of being used in any stage of a judicial proceeding, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years,” they opine. This reporter contacted T V Rajesh MLA and explained to him about the fraud in his petition. Though this reporter contacted him four times, he said he was busy and refused to make any comment on the issue. However, Rajju Shroff, chairman of the Cropcare Foundation of India, the largest association of pesticide industry in the country, said, “It is shocking that a sitting MLA of the Kerala Assembly had submitted false information about endosulfan in his petition to the Supreme Court in order to mislead the court. “Our analysis of the petition revealed many misrepresentation and distortion of facts”.
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