The central government informed the Karnataka High Court that it has directed the state government to cancel the licenses given to private companies, allowing them to collect, process and commercialize human breast milk.
Center’s reply in High Court
The high court was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by a man named Munegowda, who raised concerns about multinational companies profiting from the collection and sale of breast milk. During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General of India Arvind Kamath for the Karnataka High Court told a bench of Chief Justice NV Anjaria and Justice KV Arvind that the Union AYUSH Ministry had recently directed the Karnataka government to take action against such licenses.
Following these directions, several licences issued by the state government to private firms were cancelled.
All licenses of breast milk business will be canceled
Kamath said the central government has ordered the state to cancel all such licenses. Some companies had initially received these licenses under Ayurvedic norms, which allowed commercial use of human breast milk. However, now the Center has intervened and the state has complied by cancelling some of these licenses.
At least one company has already had its licence cancelled and it has since challenged the cancellation in the High Court.
Breast milk samples presented in court
Advocate B Visvesvaraya, representing the petitioner, showed the court a 50 ml bottle of packaged breast milk and a 10 gm packet of powdered breast milk showing their selling price as Rs 1,239 and Rs 313.
Kamath said these licences were earlier issued under the provisions relating to Ayurvedic and naturopathy practices, but reiterated that it was necessary to cancel them as per the recent directive of the Central government.
He also requested that the court include the Union Ministry of AYUSH as a respondent in the ongoing PIL. The High Court directed the petitioner to make the Union Ministry a party in the case and issued a notice. The next hearing of the case is scheduled for December 4.
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