Orissa HC refuses to interfere in red ant chutney case

CUTTACK:  The Orissa High Court has declined to intervene in a petition against rejection of a proposal for making research and investigation for use of traditional red ant chutney for treatment of Covid patients.

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences (CCRAS) had rejected the proposal submitted by Nayadhar Padhial, a Baripada-based engineer and researcher. Padhial had sought intervention against the rejection of his proposal.

While dismissing the petition on Friday, the division bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice BP Routray said, “The Court does not possess the requisite expertise to sit in appeal over the decision of the expert bodies who, for reasons stated by them, are not inclined to recommend their universal application for therapeutic or medicinal purposes”.

“Equally, the use of red ant chutney or soup by the tribal communities for medicinal and therapeutic purposes, is based on their traditional knowledge systems which the Court is hardly equipped to comment upon. These are matters best left for decision by the specialised bodies like CSIR and CCRAS which themselves have several experts”, the bench observed.

In their joint rejection letter to Padhial on January 21, the CSIR had stated that it currently does not have the required expertise in the domain of entomophagy.

The CCRAS had noted that it could not find any reference from the classical books of ayurveda mentioned in the First Schedule of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 on the internal use of red ant chutney as claimed by the petitioner so as to validate it as an ayurvedic medicine.

Therefore, the use of red ant chutney or soup for the beneficial use by the Covid patient is out of the purview of ayurveda drugs as per regulatory provisions of the law.