The Supreme Court’s five-judge Constitution Bench on Tuesday gave the Union government time till October 11 to decide if it wanted to “press” its curative petition for enhancement of compensation to the victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy, over and above the $470 million already paid by Union Carbide.
The five-judge bench led by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul gave solicitor-general Tushar Mehta time till October 11 to get instructions from the Centre on its stand on the issue. “The government will have to take a stand whether it is going to press the curative petition or not,” Justice Kaul told Mehta.
A number of intervention petitions have also been filed by organisations representing the victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy, seeking enhancement of compensation. The curative petition was filed 19 years after the review petition was decided.
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Counsel Karuna Nundy, appearing for some victims, told the SC that the case must be heard even if the government does not support their claim to the compensation amount. But the court said it would wait for the government to clarify its position about the curative petition. “We have to see if the government will press the curative plea… 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,” Justice Kaul said.
When senior counsel Sanjay Parikh, also representing some of the victims, argued that the intensity of the tragedy has only increased tremendously in terms of injuries and deaths over the years, the bench asked if the compensation could keep changing over time like that.
“Can it be said something happened five years, 10 years later?” the Bench asked, adding that “any system must provide for certainty. There cannot be perpetual uncertainty. There is no ideal situation for anything”.
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A five-judge bench had in 2011 issued notice to the Union Carbide Corporation, now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dow Chemicals, McLeod Russel India and Eveready Industries, on the Centre’s curative petition on the grounds that the compensation was determined in 1989 on assumptions of truth unrelated to realities. The government has sought additional funds of over Rs 7,400 crore from the pesticide company. The court had dismissed a curative petition filed by the CBI in 2010 for enhancement of punishment, holding that “no satisfactory explanation has been given to file such curative petitions after about 14 years from the 1996 judgment.”
