Covid-19 Vaccine and Collaboration Agreemeent

 Indian government denies access to Covid 19 vaccine collaboration agreements

The Indian government has refused to reveal its collaboration agreements and investments in the development and procurement of India's Covid 19 vaccine - Covaxin, the Indian mRNA and intranasal vaccine candidates.

Despite widespread public interest in these arrangements, the government has consistently rejected requests for this information via Right to Information (RTI). (For responses from the CIC, see here, here, and here.) Prashant Reddy (who needs no introduction on this blog) filed a number of RTI requests relating to public-private partnership arrangements involving the Covid 19 vaccines.

To characterise this issue as one of intellectual property rights (rather than governance), the government has invoked an exemption under Section 8(d) of the RTI Act in order to withhold information. Section 8(d) exempts records containing "commercial confidence, trade secrets, or intellectual property, the disclosure of which would harm a third party's competitive position." This is not, however, a blanket exemption. The competent authority can disclose even these categories of information if it is satisfied that 'larger public interest warrants its disclosure'.

As the petitioner pointed out, instead of issuing a blanket refusal, the relevant authority should have reviewed the documents to determine whether they contained any information relating to 'trade secrets,' 'commercial confidence,' or 'intellectual property,' all of which have legal definitions.

It appears difficult to overturn the law and the petition's logic. Interestingly, the government appears befuddled by the petitioner's strong case and has resorted to cheap tactics, personally attacking him for "acting against the interests of the nation" rather than fighting the case on its merits.