NEW DELHI: Joining hands with anti-GM groups from across the country, the senior Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan on Saturday wrote to environment minister Anil Madhav Dave, urging him to withhold his approval of genetically modified (GM) mustard's commercial cultivation.

Bhushan's letter comes two days after the central biotech regulator, Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), gave its green signal to the commercial release of GM mustard. The final decision is now on the environment minister's table who can either accept the regulator's recommendation or reject it. It is learnt that the ministry will go by the Supreme Court's ruling in a case challenging cultivation of GM mustard.