The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to consider a plea to direct use of ‘Red Ant Chutney’ to effectively boost immunity and prevent the infection of Covid-19 virus among people.
A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud, Vikram Nath and Hima Kohli said there is a lot of traditional knowledge, but it cannot be used as a cure for Covid-19.
“These remedies you can have for your own consumption. But we cannot ask for applying this traditional knowledge across the country,” the bench said.
The plea claimed that “Red Ant Chutney” has a medicinal value as it contains formic acid, protein, calcium, Vitamin B12 and Zinc and its efficacy needs to be ascertained as a cure of Covid-19.
It further contended this chutney, a mixture of red ants and green chillies, in the tribal belts of the country including Odisha and Chhattisgarh is considered as a cure of flu, cough, common cold, fatigue, breathing problems and other ailments.
Advocate Anirudha Sanganeria, appearing for the petitioner Nayadhar Padhial, an engineer, challenged the Orissa High Court order which had dismissed his plea.
The top court asked the petitioner, a member of tribal community of Odisha to get vaccinated for Covid and dismissed the plea.
The petitioner said he had earlier approached the CSIR, which expressed its inability and rejected the claim on the basis of lack of expertise.
The Ayush ministry too rejected the claim.
The bench said the High Court should not have directed the director general of Ayush ministry and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to take within three months a decision on a proposal.
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(Published 09 September 2021, 13:00 IST)
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