Maharashtra State Biodiversity Board (MSBB) and National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) is in the process of filing replies to the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court (HC) on ABS non-compliance cases for which a writ petition was filed by association of manufacturers in the state for seeking clarity on whether Indian companies fall under its purview.

The case will come up for hearing after two weeks time at the Nagpur bench of Bombay HC.

Following 350 notices being served by MSBB for the recovery of ABS under the Biodiversity Act (BD), 2002, Central India Ayush Drug Manufacturers Association (CIDMA) had filed a petition in the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court for seeking clarity on ABS compliance.

MSBB had served around 350 notices in the past on the manufacturers in the state and received responses from only 20 manufacturers. An official from MSBB stated that state biodiversity boards, NBA and central government are empowered to take legal action for the non-compliance to ABS.

While MSBB has maintained that it has the powers to impose fine to the tune of Rs.2 lakhs or even more on the manufacturers as per the provisions of the BD Act, HC in the past had sent notices to the respondents in the case namely NBA, MSBB, ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) and the state forest ministry and directed them not to take coercive action against the manufacturers.

PIL filed by Vijay Sharma, secretary, CIDMA on behalf of the Association stated that ABS compliance is not applicable to Indian entities as there is no legislation in place to comply with. The inclusion of Indian companies to pay ABS through November 21, 2014 gazette notification does not fulfill the validity or legal requirement of compliance under the BD Act. Only foreign companies and companies holding foreign equity can be held liable as per the BD Act.

As per the BD Act, manufacturers are accountable to share details of the source from where raw material has been procured in Form I and further submission of the same to MSBB.

Manufacturers also pinpointed that the fees charged as part of ABS in Form I meant to share details of the bio-resource sourced for commercial utilisation is too high for small manufacturers. There are 2000 manufacturers in the state, out of which only handful can afford to pay the fees of Rs.5000.

As per the MoEF notification on ABS, when the biological resources are accessed for commercial utilisation or the bio-survey and bio-utilisation leads to commercial utilisation, the applicant shall have the option to pay the benefit sharing ranging from 0.1 to 0.5 per cent at the following graded percentages of the annual gross ex-factory sale of the product which shall be worked out based on the annual gross ex-factory sale minus government taxes.