New Delhi (PTI): The NGO, whose RTI query had resulted in the disclosure of clinical trial deaths at AIIMS, on Monday registered a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission following reports that drugs meant for adults had been tried on babies at the premier medical institute.

Rahul Verma of Uday Foundation, submitted a petition to the NHRC invoking violation of the right to life and citing Article 21 of the Constitution, in connection with the case. "We are seeking intervention of the NHRC because we have no faith in any internal inquiry by the institute," Verma said.

Verma added that Health Minister Ambumani Ramadoss had indirectly given a clean chit to the institute earlier. The Health Minister had supported the institute's stand that the children might have died of natural causes.

The petition is now with the NHRC which will decide what action to take.

"We had sought information about the top five drugs tried on children in clinical trials over the past two-and-half years in AIIMS. Now, experts have said two of the four drugs tried on the babies were meant only for people above 18 years of age," Verma told PTI.

The NGO had earlier demanded an independent judicial probe into the case after reports claimed that most of the children involved in trials belonged to economically weaker sections.

Following the direction of the Health Minister, AIIMS had constituted a five-member panel to probe the case. It had earlier clarified that the children died as a result of natural causes and not because of an adverse drug effect.

It was revealed last week that as many as 49 children died during clinical trials of new medicines in AIIMS over the last two-and-a-half years. A total of 4,142 children, of whom 2,728 were under the age of one, were enrolled for the clinical trials of new drugs and therapies by the Department of Pediatrics since January one, 2006.