Bhopal gas tragedy: SC reserves order on plea challenging compensation

The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its order on the Centre's curative plea for reopening its settlement with Union Carbide for raising the amount of compensation to 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy victims.
 

The Curative Petition filed by the Union of India was being heard by the Constitution Bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul for three days from January 10, 2023. 

Advocate Karuna Nundy, appearing for a group of victims, told the Court that there has been suppression of facts by Union Carbide(now Dow Chemicals) and so that strikes at the root of the settlement the company initially offered. 

Fraud resulting in under-compensation would require us to start the trial again, the court remarked. 

“Almost 93% of the victims got Rs 25,000 in the first round. In 2004, my lords gave another Rs 25,000 to disburse the amount and the interest that had accumulated. A vast majority of people got Rs 50,000 over a lifetime of cancer, liver damage,” Nundy said. 

Senior Advocate Harish Salve, appearing for Union Carbide, said that nothing is argued to show that the review Bench made some horrible mistake in coming to this conclusion. “The court was aware that we don’t know where this is going to end. It is not that now you (the Union government) realised that you don’t know where this is going to end. You knew that then,” he added. 

The Court had told the Centre on Wednesday that a curative petition cannot be tried as a suit or a “review of a review” petition and asked why the government was asking Union Carbide to pay an additional compensation when it could pay the victims from their pocket. 

“If as a welfare society, you (the government) are so concerned that you should have paid more, you had to do it yourself first. You want to enjoy the welfare State principles, but say that,“ the court told Attorney General R Venkataramani.

The bench, which also comprises Justices Sanjiv Khanna, AS Oka, Vikram Nath and JK Maheshwari said, “We don’t live in Utopia. The government did what it thought was the best at that time for the victims. A review petition was also brought which ended in 1991. Now, can we keep opening the same wounds time and again?” 

The Attorney General tried to persuade the bench to entertain the plea to prevent a miscarriage of justice.

The Supreme Court is hearing a 12-year-old curative petition seeking more than Rs 7,500 crore more from Dow Chemicals, Union Carbide, and others for deaths and injuries caused by the 1984 Bhopal gas leak. A curative petition is the last resort available to a person after a review petition is dismissed. 

As many as 5,295 people died and 568,292 were injured when a highly toxic gas called Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) leaked from Union Carbide India’s plan in Bhopal in the early hours of December 3, 1984.