NEW DELHI • India cut the royalties paid by local firms for Monsanto’s genetically modified cotton seeds by nearly 70 percent on Wednesday, ignoring a threat by the world’s biggest seed company to leave if it did.

The move follows complaints from local seeds companies that Mahyco Monsanto Biotech (India)(MMB), a Monsanto joint venture with India’s Mahyco, was charging high royalties. This prompted India’s farm ministry to form a panel to look into the matter, whose recommendation the government has now accepted.

MMB has filed a case in a Delhi court, challenging the authority of the panel to determine the trade fee agreed upon by MMB and a number of Indian seed companies.

As well as cutting the royalties, the government also capped GM cotton seed prices at 800 rupees, about $11.90, for a packet of 400 grams, or about 14 ounces, after appeals by some state governments and farmers to lower the rate of the Bt variety that commands 90 percent of the market.

Bt cotton seeds are being sold at between 830 and 1,100 rupees per packet in different parts of the country.