The apex court on Thursday (May 9) said that courts can refer to Parliamentary Committee reports while deciding an issue.

The five-judge constitution bench, comprising Chief Justice Misra, Justice A K Sikri, Justice A M Khanwilkar, Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice Ashok Bhushan said: “The parliamentary standing committee looks into the formation of laws. Since these committees fall under the public domain, there is no way it is out of the purview of judicial review.”

The issue had come to light while the court was hearing a PIL raising doubts about the usefulness of a vaccine produced by two drug companies for the medication of cervical cancer. The petitioner had referred to a parliamentary committee report in this regard and this reference was challenged.

During the previous hearings, the petitioner Kalpana Mehta, a medical practitioner, had said that the HPV vaccine produced by two drug companies for treating cervical cancer was “unverified and hazardous” by relying on 72nd report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The drug company had opposed the contentions of Mehta by saying that these reports were only “advisory in nature” which may or may not be approved by Parliament and thus can’t be trusted by the higher courts in deciding the matters.

The bench had refuted the contentions of the drug company by observing “it may not look at the committee report for fault-finding but can rely upon the same for deciding an issue before it. That is the whole purpose of putting the report in the public domain”.

—India Legal Bureau