The Madras High Court has stayed the order of the Committee for Purpose of Control and Safe Experiment on Animals (CPCSEA) to the BCG Vaccine Laboratory to suspend all animal experiments. The stay order is in response to a writ petition (W.P. No 3189/2002) filed by the Laboratory at the instance of CPCSEA communication ordering it to close down the animal house and suspend animal experiments.

The CPCSEA had in a communication, after examining the laboratory, to the laboratory ordered suspension of all animal experiments. However, in its report it was mentioned that the animal house at the Laboratory was in proper order. The laboratory took up this point and claimed that the findings of the CPCSEA were based on “patent and false statements”.

The BCG Vaccine Laboratory is the second institute in Tamil Nadu which received such a communication. Earlier, the CPCSEA had ordered closure of the King's Institute of Preventive Medicine, one of the country's largest manufacturers of anti-snake venom serum. BCG Vaccine Laboratory is the country's largest producer of Bacillo Calmette Geurin vaccine.

The laboratory has gone against the CPCSEA claiming mischievous motives behind the communication. It claimed that everything was in proper order and that suspension of all animal experiments “was another way to knock on its head”. The CPCSEA has been angered by the Laboratory approaching the court claiming that “instead of setting their house in order, the laboratory had approached the court to settle the matter”. But the laboratory has parried away the argument saying that the same is unfortunate, mischievous and misleading. It claimed further that laboratory approached the court only because the CPCSEA did not make out a prima facie case to stop the animal experiments.

The laboratory has further claimed that suspension of all animal experiments would have far reaching consequences.