When Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Environment and Forests, announced his decision not to go ahead with the commercialisation of GM (genetically modified) brinjal, the concerned sections of civil society felt a huge sense of relief. This limited success of civil society would not have been possible but for the sustained efforts of two petitioners and their counsel to seek the Supreme Court’s intervention at every stage in order to make the government accountable.