People's Democracy

Disband Dr Mashelkar Committee

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) issued the following statement on February 22, 2007.

AFTER public exposure, the Dr R A Mashelkar-headed expert committee on Patent Law has written to the government of India asking that its 56-page report submitted in 2006 December be withdrawn on the grounds of “technical inaccuracy and plagiarism.” Many conclusions in the report are verbatim reproduction of a research paper prepared under a research project financially supported by Interpat, a Swiss association of major European, Japanese and US based pharmaceutical companies.

The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) demands that the government should disband the discredited Dr Mashelkar Committee and take appropriate steps to constitute an expert committee comprising of persons with intellectual integrity and committed to uphold the common people’s interests. (INN)