Mumbai: Top scientist R A Mashelkar on Saturday resigned as the chief of a committee that is studying how to reform India’s patent laws.
Mashelkar faxed a letter to Ajay Dua, Secretary for Industrial Policy and Promotion, in which he said he was "deeply pained by the fact that doubts, explicit or implicit", have been expressed about his "integrity, competence and motives".
The expert committee on February 19 withdrew its report after it was found that 10-12 lines were copied from a paper published by the Intellectual Property Institute of the University of Oxford, UK.
Mashelkar, who has claimed the lines were a mistake, said because of the "personalised attack" he has dissociated himself from the technical expert group on patent law issues, PTI quoted him as saying.
Mashelkar said he had led many committees during his career but never "never before have I had such an unfortunate experience," he said
The four members of the committee on patent laws will finish the remaining task.
Despite pressure from the Left, pharma firms and NGOs, the government had permitted the expert group to remove "technical inaccuracies" from his controversial report on patent laws, Mashelkar said.
The report examined whether India's patent laws complied with the World Trade Organisation’s agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).
Mashelkar is a former director general of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the government’s top scientific body.
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