A five-judge constitution bench said there was no rationale by the Centre to rake up the issue two decades after the settlement.
Stating ‘Gross negligence on part of Union of India’, on the Bhopal gas tragedy, the Supreme Court dismisses Centre’s plea for additional funds from UCC’s successor firms.
A five-judge constitution bench said there was no rationale by the Centre to rake up the issue two decades after the settlement
The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed the Centre’s 2010 curative petition that sought additional compensation of over Rs 7,000 crore from the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) for victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.
A Constitution bench, comprising Justices S K Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, A S Oka, Vikram Nath, and J K Maheshwari, pointed out the proceedings which culminated in the SC’s July 19, 2004, ruling on review petitions in the case. It was “admitted…that the amount of settlement was found to be in surplus of the actual requirement and thus the claimants had been “provided compensation that was more than what was reasonably awarded to them under the law”, said the bench.
This, the bench said, “reinforces the position the settlement amount was sufficient to compensate the claimants”.
Pointing out why it is important to provide closure to the matter, the court said it will otherwise open Pandora’s box in UCC’s favor and to the detriment of the beneficiaries.
Taking exception to the Centre again filing the curative petition, the SC said, “The Union has filed the present curative petition seeking to reopen the settlement after opposing attempts by private parties to do so”.
It added, “The responsibility was placed on the Union of India, being a welfare state, to make good the deficiency and to take out the relevant insurance policy. Surprisingly, we are informed that no such insurance policy was taken out. This is gross negligence on part of the Union of India and a breach of the directions made in the review judgment”.
The judgment said, “The Union cannot be negligent on this aspect and then seek a prayer from this court to fix such responsibility on the UCC”.
It said the Centre’s claim for a top-up “has no foundation in any known legal principle”.
The court said that a settlement is either valid or it is to be set aside in cases where it is vitiated by fraud. But “no such fraud has been pleaded by the Union of India. And their only contention relates to a number of victims, injuries caused…not contemplated at the time the settlement was affected”.
The bench said, “It was known that medical facilities will have to be extended to rehabilitate people and there was bound to be environmental degradation. In fact, it was UCC’s allegation that Union and State did not proactively detoxify or recommission the site thereby aggravating the problem. In candy case, this cannot be a ground to seek annulment of the compromise particularly as the settlement has to be reached in an expeditious manner”.
The ruling said that the Attorney General’s response has been that the method of topping up the settlement amounts to be devised under Article 142 of the Constitution of India.
Read |Bhopal gas tragedy: ‘Dip into your own pocket’ says Supreme Court on Centre’s curative plea
“We believe this would not be the appropriate course of action…”, it said. “We are equally dissatisfied with the Union of India being unable to furnish any rationale for raking up this affected issue more than two decades after the incident”.
The court said that “even assuming that the figures of affected persons turned out to be larger than contemplated earlier, an excess amount of funds remain available to satisfy such claims. The Welfare Commissioner has in fact held in the order dated January 31, 2009, that on including the pro-rata compensation, nearly six times the amount of compensation had been dispersed to the victims in comparison with motor vehicle accident claims….”.
The bench said that “a sum of Rs 50 crore lying with the Reserve Bank of India shall be used by the Union of India to satisfy pending claims if any in accordance with the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster Act, 1985, and the scheme framed thereunder”.
What was the Bhopal Gas Tragedy?
The Bhopal disaster or Bhopal gas tragedy was a chemical accident on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. Believed to be the world’s worst industrial disaster with over 500,000 people in the small towns around the plant being exposed to the highly toxic gas methyl isocyanate (MIC). Estimates vary on the death toll, with the official number of immediate deaths being 2,259. In 2008, the Government of Madhya Pradesh paid compensation to the family members of 3,787 victims killed in the gas release, and to 574,366 injured victims. A government affidavit in 2006 stated that the leak caused 558,125 injuries, including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries. It is estimated that 8,000 died within two weeks, and another 8,000 or more have since died from gas-related diseases.
