The Centre today made it clear that it was yet to take a decision on the request by Dr R A Mashelkar seeking permission to `withdraw' the controversial report of the Technical Expert Group on Patent Law Issues, chaired by him.

Dr Ashwani Kumar, Minister of State for Industry, told Lok Sabha on Tuesday that the Government had got a letter, dated February 19, 2007, by the chairman of the TEG with a request to allow it to withdraw the report.

The Minister said the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance had represented to the Government to reject the report and ignore the recommendations of the TEG, which submitted it s report on December 29, 2006.

It may be recalled that the noted scientist who headed over 10 high power panels for the Government in the past sought to withdraw the report in the wake of allegations of plagiarism.

The Minister said the one of the major recommendation of the TEG was that `excluding micro-organisms per se from patent protection would be violative of TRIPS agreement.'

"It would not be TRIPs (Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) compliant to limit granting of patents for pharmaceutical substance to New Chemical Entities only. However, every effort must be made to provide drugs at affordable prices to the people of India. Further, every effort should be made to prevent the grant of frivolous patents and 'ever-greening'. Detailed guidelines should be formulated and rigorously used by the Indian Patent Office for examining the patent applications in the pharmaceutical sector so that the remotest possibility of granting frivolous patents is eliminated", said another recommendation.