Bhopal Gas Tragedy: SC seeks Centre’s stand on additional compensation
   Date :21-Sep-2022

Bhopal Gas Tragedy 
 
 
 
By Bhavana
‘Aparajita’ Shukla
The Supreme Court, on Tuesday, sought Central Government’s stand on enhancement of the compensation to the Bhopal gas tragedy victims. So far the victims have received combined compensation of 470 million US Dollars.
“The Government will have to take a stand whether it is going to press the curative petition or not,” Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, heading the five-judge Bench, observed. The court granted time till October 11 and asked the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to get instructions from the Government on whether it wants to ‘Press’ its curative petition. The curative petition was filed by the previous Manmohan Singh Government in 2010 against the Dow Chemical Company (TDCC), and Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) for a direction of additional compensation of 1.2 billion dollars (then Rs 7,413 crore) for the victims of Bhopal gas disaster. However, the victims, represented by advocate Karuna Nundy, said the court should hear them irrespective of the Government’s decision. To which the bench observed, “We will see whether you are required to be heard at all. If the Government presses it (curative petition), maybe your task will be simpler.”
The objective of filing the Curative Petition was to seek additional compensation for the victims of the Bhopal gas leak disaster of 02/03 December 1984 because by June 2010 it had dawned upon the Union of India that the magnitude and gravity of the impact of the disaster had been grossly underestimated at the time of the Settlement in 1989. The submission of the Union of India in this regard was that, “the respondents are liable to pay additional compensation on a) claim on account of incorrect and wrong assumption of facts and data in the impugned judgments and orders passed by this Hon’ble Court) claim on account of actual expenditure incurred by the state towards relief and rehabilitation; and claim on account of Environmental Degradation.”
A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court had in 2011 issued notices to the Union Carbide Corporation, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Chemicals Co., US; Dow Chemicals; McLeod Russel India, Kolkata, and Eveready Industries, Kolkata.
The Centre had sought a re-look of the May 4, 1989, and subsequent October 3, 1991, orders of the Supreme Court, contending that the 1989 settlement was seriously impaired. The Government has sought additional funds of over Rs 7,400 crore from the pesticide company. The tragedy occurred in Bhopal on the intervening night of December 2-3,1984 when the highly dangerous and toxic gas, Methyl Isocynate (MIC), escaped from the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) leaving 5,295 humans dead and 5,68,292 persons either injured, partially blind or terminally ill. Besides, huge loss of livestock and loss of property to almost 5,478 persons. Earlier in 1996, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had filed the curative petition to correct the Supreme Court’s “colossal failure of justice” in 1996 when it chose to dismiss the 1984 Bhopal Gas tragedy as a result of an act of negligence, and not culpable homicide, by former Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson and his Indian employees. The court had dismissed a curative petition filed by the CBI in 2010 for enhancement of punishment. Anderson died in 2014. Dismissing the curative plea the court had held that “no satisfactory explanation has been given to file such curative petitions after about 14 years from the 1996 judgment.” The CBI had wanted the Supreme Court to ‘restore’ the criminal charge of Section 304 Part II IPC ie, culpable homicide not amounting to murder) against the accused persons. Five organisations of the survivors of the Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal have condemned the Union Government for failing to prepare for the Curative Petition that began to be heard in the Supreme Court on Tuesday. They demanded that the Government use the three weeks till the next hearing to ensure that the actual damage caused by the disaster is factually represented before the five judge bench. “The Solicitor General informed the five judges in the Supreme Court today that he is still waiting for instructions from the Government. In the 11 years since the petition was submitted no Indian government has yet filed a single additional argument to protect the legal rights of half a million Bhopal survivors. This Government must show that it does in fact care about half a million of its most vulnerable citizens,” said Rashida Bee, Goldman Environmental Prize awardee and President of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh. Nousheen Khan of Children Against Dow-Carbide expressed hope that the Government will now find time to look at the several scientific studies that have documented health damage in children born to gas exposed parents and claim compensation on behalf of them. “In its present form, the Government’s Curative Petition does not even mention the health damage to an entire generation born after the disaster.”