What does the centre wants in Bhopal gas case?
- January 15, 2023
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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What does the centre wants in Bhopal gas case?
Subject: Geography
Section: Geomorphology
Context:
- The Union of India calls the Bhopal gas leak tragedy the world’s largest industrial disaster.
About the tragedy:
- On the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984, methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas escaped from the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, leading to hundreds of deaths.
Why in news now?
- A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court led by Justice S. K. Kaul has reserved its judgment on a curative petition filed by the Centre in November 2010 to enhance the $470 million (about ₹725 crore at the then-exchange rate) compensation fixed in a 1989 settlement reached with Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), now a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Chemicals, with the imprimatur of the apex court.
- The government has sought an additional amount of ₹675.96 crores in compensation from the pesticide company.
- The UCC has refused to pay a “farthing more”. The court made it clear that it would not “try” the curative petition like an ordinary suit and reopen the settlement.
What is the basis for the plea for more compensation?
- Earlier the basis of compensation was the number of death due to the tragedy, which was 3000.
- Now, in the curative petition, the number of deaths have been shown to be 5295.
- Further, the number of cases of cancer and renal failure was 16,739 and 6,711, respectively.
- The estimated numbers for temporary disability and minor injury cases were 20,000 and 50,000, respectively.
Curative petition:
- The curative plea is a remedy evolved by the Supreme Court in the 2002 judgment in the Ashok Hurra versus Rupa Hurra case.
- It is the rarest-of-rare remedies when “the duty to do justice shall have to prevail over the policy of certainty of a judgment and declining justice would be oppressive to judicial conscience and perpetuate an irremediable injustice”.
- A party can take only two limited grounds in a curative petition
- one, that he or she was not given an opportunity to be heard, and
- two, that the judges were biased.
- A curative petition, which follows the dismissal of the review petition, is the last legal avenue open in the Supreme Court.
- The government had not filed a review petition, but directly came for curative relief in 2010.