PESHAWAR, Nov 29: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday deferred the hearing of a writ petition seeking discontinuation of the polio eradication programme in the country.

The two-member bench, comprising Chief Justice Tariq Pervez Khan and Justice Qaim Jan Khan, ordered that the petition should be fixed for hearing after the arrival of the test results of polio drops samples from the National Institute of Health (NIH).

The bench was hearing the writ petition filed by a lawyer Ghulam Nabi, according to which the polio drops contained ‘a hormone which affected the human reproductive system’.

At the outset, the court was informed by the state counsel that the NIH had said that they would submit results at the earliest but such tests normally took two months.

During the last hearing held on Oct 10, the bench had directed the NIH to test three samples of polio drops at its facilities in Islamabad. The court had directed the provincial health secretary to collect the samples in the presence of a judicial magistrate.

The petitioner claimed that some scientists had found that the polio vaccine contained a hormone called estrogen, which directly affected the reproductive system and called for suspending the anti-polio campaign until the disposal of the petition.

Essa Khan, lawyer appearing on behalf of the petitioner, contended that the supply of what he called ‘contaminated vaccine’ was not only against Articles 4, 9 and 35 of the Constitution, which guaranteed protection of life and family but also violated the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights.

He wondered why Estrogen, which had nothing to do with eradication of polio, was included in the vaccine.

The petitioner claimed that in 1995, the Supreme Court of the Philippines had ordered halting a Unicef-sponsored anti-tetanus campaign, on the request of the Catholic Women's League of the Philippines, as the vaccine was laced with an element which permanently affected fertility in women.

The respondents in the petition are the federal secretary health, all the four provincial health secretaries, the World Health Organisation and the NWFP IGP.