In the light of the recent reports that Dr Mashelkar has misinterpreted Carlos Correa's, a patent expert of international repute, views to support its conclusions in the revised report, the central government is under pressure from the NGOs working on patent issues to reconsider its decision to accept the revised report of Mashelkar Committee.

The National Working Group on Patent Law (NWGPL) has asked union commerce minister Anand Sharma to look into the issue once again in the light of new disclosures. According to recent reports, Carlos Correa has complained of 'misinterpretation' of some quotes from his published article titled "Integrating Public Health Concerns into Patent Legislation in Developing Countries," by Dr Mashelkar to support his conclusion that India's patent laws could not be tightened. Correa is reported to have said that the Mashelkar committee had misinterpreted the text quoted from his study to convey a meaning that he had not suggested.

Correa's views have been widely quoted by the Mashelkar committee to establish that under the WTO's TRIPS agreement, India will not have the right to limit the granting of patents for pharmaceutical substances to strictly new medicines.

The government had set up a technical expert group (TEG) with Dr R A Mashelkar as its chairman and four other members, on April 5, 2005 on the twin issues of 'evergreening of patents' and 'excluding micro-organism from patentability'. It submitted the report to the government on December 29, 2006. There was strong criticism of the report by public interest groups and others on the ground that important parts of it were plagiarized from a submission before the TEG by the representatives of MNCs. The criticism was so strong that Dr Mashelkar resigned as chairman. However, the government persuaded him to re-examine the issues and submit a revised report.

The TEG submitted its revised report to the government and the government accepted the report. But, the redrafted report has also run into rough weather due to the new disclosures by Carlos Correa.