The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to spell out within four weeks the protocols being followed for experimenting a vaccine on subjects and the subsequent compensation given to them in case of any adverse impact.
A bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice P C Pant allowed a plea made by the Centre’s counsel R S Suri seeking time to file his response to a contention that recent Parliament Standing Committee has in December last adversely commented over the procedure being followed by the government.
Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, appearing for petitioner Kalpana Mehta, contended that the 81st report of the standing committee showed how total apathy had been exhibited in experimenting vaccines on young tribal girls in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Gujarat.
The bench also asked the government to reply on what steps have been taken to find out the hardships faced by subjects in clinical trials besides compensation in consonance with law. The court posted the matter for further hearing on March 18.