‘How can India be a defendant, and not a claimant in the Bhopal case’
Union law minister, Veerappa Moily, on October 27, announced the government will not pursue the ongoing lawsuit in the US for compensating Bhopal gas tragedy victims. Himanshu Rajan Sharma, lead counsel for the victims in the class action suit against Union Carbide Corporation, told Ravleen Kaur how the decision has affected chances of holding the company accountable for the 1984 gas mishap. The Indian subsidiary of Union Carbide owned the pesticide plant where the gas leaked, killing a few thousand people overnight. Excerpts:
By Ravleen Kaur
Published: Tuesday 30 November 2010
It is ill-considered and neither in the interest of the victims nor of India. It benefits Dow Chemical Company (Union Carbide is now a subsidiary of Dow) that has asserted it is not subject to the jurisdiction of Indian courts since it no longer operates in India. The Centre justified the decision not to pursue the case in the US saying India’s courts are competent enough to penalise the people responsible for the tragedy.
But any judgement rendered by an Indian court will not be enforceable against the company due to lack of jurisdiction. How can the government then say that Indian courts are competent to fix the liability?
On the attorney general’s advise to the government not to become party to the case
The learned attorney general, G E Vahanvati, said the government could not be a claimant in the American lawsuit, but only a defendant. His opinion overlooks the fact that the land polluted by the company, site on which the plant stands, was leased by the Madhya Pradesh government.
The state’s chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan understood this and publicly sought the Centre’s permission to intervene as a landowner and file a claim saying the leased premises had been polluted. If Chauhan can seek to intervene as a claimant, how can the attorney general say that India could not be a claimant, but only a defendant in the case?
On the importance of government’s support to the case
The American court asked the Indian government to intervene in the case because it is the lawful owner of the pesticide plant site. Though the Indian government submitted a letter to the US courts demanding clean-up and site remediation by the company, it has not intervened formally in the case. This is a significant obstacle in holding Union Carbide accountable for polluting the drinking water supply of 16 residential communities of Bhopal. The Indian government’s intervention is the only option. Otherwise, the clean-up will be left to the public who will end up subsidising the company that caused one of the world’s worst industrial disasters.
Comments are moderated and will be published only after the site moderator’s approval. Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name. Selected comments may also be used in the ‘Letters’ section of the Down To Earth print edition.
Thank you for the article
Thank you for the article Ravleen. If any readers are interested, Rajan has discussed this area in considerable details here
http://www.beyondbhopal.org/interviews/rajan-sharma/97-rajan-sharma/184-rajan-sharma-biography
We have used this content at beyond bhopal to brief as the ministerial in European parliaments over the last year.
Dear Editor, This is a clear
Dear Editor,
This is a clear cut violation and not ready to shoulder the responsibility for doing the justice to the project affected people (PAPs)and the area. This allows the people to think in several ways as:
@ who is responsible for giving the permission?
@ why people (PAPs)were not involved before?
@ why the authority (who has given the permission)is
not ready to shoulder the responsibility for its
consequences?
@ who is eating the cream or getting benefit and at
or whose cost?
This example, clearly encourages the people/firms to do what they want and escape with out facing the consequences. This situation was raised mainly due to the poor participation of the stakeholders and PAPs. Certainly this type of participation would have helped us to avoid the present ill effects both to the people as well as to the environment.
It should be the natural law that "Polluters should pay for the ill effects".
We all should learn lesson out of this bad situation. Now we should awake with suitable measures / guidelines / rules / policies for avoiding such situations in future and thus to do the business for the benefit of the people and the nation.