Seeds, Propagating Material and the Seeds Act 1966: Background and Basic Concepts
Law of Intellectual Property and Plant Varieties · Unit I · Topic 1 of 12 · 7 min read
On this page
Cases checked to exist. Read the judgment before quoting a holding.
Every case cited here has been checked to exist — the citation resolves and names the right parties. The propositions attributed to each case have not been verified line by line against the judgment. Case names link through to the full judgment: read it before quoting a holding in an examination answer, and never carry a proposition from notes into court on trust.
About this paper. KSLU sets this as Paper VI of the LL.M. (IPR Law). These notes follow
the units of KSLU’s two-year LL.M. syllabus (2022–23) for the paper and the past papers: I,
history, seeds and the Seeds Act, basic concepts and PBRs against patents; II, the PPV&FR Act and the
kinds of variety; III, registration, opposition, rights, term, benefit sharing, surrender and
revocation; IV, transfer, licences, remedies, offences, the Authority, Registry, appellate forum and the
powers of governments; V, TRIPS, UPOV and the ITPGRFA (with the CBD and Nagoya Protocol).
What Unit I asks. The KSLU syllabus opens with the “historical background leading to modern legislations; meaning of seeds, plants, propagating material and relevant provisions of the Seeds Act, 1966”, followed by the meaning of plant variety, new variety, plant breeder, farmer, cultivator, PBRs and farmers’ rights. The PBR note covers the distinction from patents and the socio-economic debate. This note supplies the Indian background, the Seeds Act and the definitions.
What Unit I asks. The KSLU syllabus opens with the “historical background leading to modern legislations; meaning of seeds, plants, propagating material and relevant provisions of the Seeds Act, 1966”, followed by the meaning of plant variety, new variety, plant breeder, farmer, cultivator, PBRs and farmers’ rights. The PBR note covers the distinction from patents and the socio-economic debate. This note supplies the Indian background, the Seeds Act and the definitions.
1. Historical background
- Seed as a commons. For most of history farmers saved seed from each harvest, exchanged it with neighbours, and selected for local conditions. Landraces and farmers’ varieties are the product of that practice. No one owned a variety.
- Public breeding and the Green Revolution. From the 1960s high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice were bred and distributed mainly by public institutions: the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, the State agricultural universities and the National Seeds Corporation (1963). The State’s concern was seed quality, not ownership, and the Seeds Act, 1966 reflects that.
- Private seed industry. The Seeds (Control) Order, 1983, made under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, required seed dealers to be licensed. The New Policy on Seed Development, 1988 opened the sector to private and foreign investment and to imports of seed. Hybrids, which farmers cannot usefully save, gave private breeders a biological form of protection.
- TRIPS. Article 27(3)(b) required India to protect plant varieties by patents, an effective sui generis system, or both. India chose a sui generis law and, after long debate on whether to follow UPOV 1991, enacted the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001. Sections 2 to 13 came into force on 11 November 2005 and the rest on 19 October 2006.
- Unfinished reform. A Seeds Bill to replace the 1966 Act was introduced in 2004 and later redrafted, but has not been enacted, so the 1966 Act remains the quality law.
2. Seed, plant and propagating material
| Term | Seeds Act, 1966 | PPV&FR Act, 2001 |
|---|---|---|
| Seed | s.2(11): seed of food crops (including edible oilseeds, fruits and vegetables), cotton, cattle fodder and jute, used for sowing or planting, including seedlings, tubers, bulbs, rhizomes, roots, cuttings, grafts and other vegetatively propagated material | s.2(x): a type of living embryo or propagule capable of regeneration and giving rise to a plant true to type |
| Propagating material | Covered within “seed” | s.2(r): any plant or its component or part, including an intended seed or seed, capable of or suitable for regeneration into a plant |
| Variety | s.2(16): a sub-division of a kind identifiable by growth, yield, plant, fruit, seed or other characteristic | s.2(za): plant grouping in a single botanical taxon of the lowest known rank, defined, distinguishable and stable on propagation |
| Kind | s.2(8): related species or sub-species known by one common name (cabbage, maize, paddy, wheat) | Not used; the Act speaks of genera and species notified under s.29(2) |
Neither Act defines “plant”; it takes its ordinary botanical meaning. The PPV&FR Act excludes micro-organisms from “variety”. The difference in definitions follows the difference in purpose. The Seeds Act lists crop groups because it regulates what is sold to farmers; the PPV&FR Act defines seed and propagating material by biological capacity to regenerate, because the breeder’s right attaches to anything that can reproduce the variety.
3. The Seeds Act, 1966: relevant provisions
- Institutions: the Central Seed Committee to advise governments (section 3); the Central and State Seed Laboratories (section 4); State certification agencies (section 8) and the Central Seed Certification Board (section 8A); Seed Analysts and Seed Inspectors (sections 12 and 13).
- Notified kinds and varieties (section 5): the Central Government, after consulting the Committee, may notify a kind or variety where it is necessary to regulate the quality of its seed. Different varieties may be notified for different States or areas.
- Standards (section 6): minimum limits of germination and purity, and the mark or label showing that seed meets them.
- Regulation of sale (section 7): no one may carry on the business of selling, keeping for sale, bartering or supplying seed of a notified kind or variety unless it is identifiable, meets the minimum germination and purity, and carries the prescribed label.
- Certification is voluntary (section 9): a seller may apply to the certification agency, which certifies seed meeting the prescribed standards, never lower than the section 6 minimums. Certificates may be revoked (section 10), with an appeal (section 11).
- Enforcement: Seed Inspectors may take samples, enter and search premises and seize seed (sections 14 and 15), and the Seed Analyst reports (section 16). Export and import of notified seed must meet the same standards (section 17).
- Penalty (section 19): a fine of up to five hundred rupees for a first offence; for a repeat offence, imprisonment up to six months or fine up to one thousand rupees, or both.
- Farmer exemption (section 24): the Act does not apply to seed grown by a person and sold or delivered by him on his own premises directly to another person for sowing or planting.
Critique. The Act controls only notified kinds and varieties, and much of the
market (especially private hybrids that are never notified) escapes its labelling rules.
Certification is voluntary, and
the penalties have not been revised since 1966, so they do not deter the sale of spurious seed,
which is the most common complaint of Indian farmers. Compare section 39(2) of the PPV&FR Act,
which lets farmers claim compensation from the breeder before the Authority when registered seed
fails to give its disclosed performance.
4. How the two Acts connect
- A variety notified under section 5 of the Seeds Act is an extant variety under section 2(j)(i) of the PPV&FR Act and can be registered without novelty.
- For such a variety, unless a breeder establishes his right, the Central Government (or the State Government, where the variety was notified for a State) is deemed the owner (proviso to section 28(1)).
- Its protection runs for fifteen years from the date of notification under the Seeds Act (section 24(6)).
- The Seeds Act regulates quality; the PPV&FR Act regulates ownership and rights. A seller of a registered variety must satisfy both: the PBR to sell, and the Seeds Act standards for what he sells.
5. Basic concepts of the PPV&FR Act
- Plant variety and new variety: section 2(za), and the novelty and DUS conditions in section 15. See the kinds-of-varieties note.
- Breeder (section 2(c)): a person or group of persons, a farmer or group of farmers, or any institution which has bred, evolved or developed any variety. The definition deliberately includes farmers.
- Farmer (section 2(k)): a person who cultivates crops by cultivating the land himself, or by directly supervising cultivation through another person, or who conserves and preserves wild species or traditional varieties or adds value to them through selection and identification of useful properties.
- Cultivator is not separately defined. The first two limbs of “farmer” cover cultivators, whether owners, tenants or sharecroppers, because the test is who cultivates, not who owns the land. The Biological Diversity Act, 2002 uses “growers and cultivators of biodiversity” in its exemption for local people and communities.
- Plant breeders’ rights (section 28(1)): the exclusive right of the breeder or his successor, agent or licensee to produce, sell, market, distribute, import or export the variety.
- Farmers’ rights (section 39(1)): registration of varieties bred by farmers and of farmers’ varieties; recognition and reward from the Gene Fund for conserving land races and wild relatives; and the right to save, use, sow, resow, exchange, share or sell farm produce including seed of a protected variety, but not branded seed. See the rights note.
How this is examined
A short note on the “Seeds Act, 1966” needs its purpose (quality, not ownership), sections 5, 6, 7, 9, 19 and 24, and the link to extant varieties. “Define seed, propagating material and variety” is answered with the table, contrasting the two Acts. An essay on the historical background should run from farm-saved seed through public breeding and the 1988 policy to TRIPS and the 2001 Act.
Now try the real questions: Law of Intellectual Property and Plant Varieties past question papers.