Bhopal gas tragedy: SC to pronounce judgement on plea for enhanced compensation

The Supreme Court is scheduled to pronounce on Tuesday its judgement on a curative petition by the Centre seeking an additional Rs 7,844 crore from the successor firms of Union Carbide Corporation for extending greater compensation to the victims of the 1984 tragedy which had claimed more than 3000 lives and caused huge damage to the environment.

A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, Abhay S Oka, Vikram Nath and J K Maheshwari would deliver the judgement on a plea filed by the Union government in 2010.

The top court had reserved its judgement on January 12 after hearing senior advocate Harish Salve on behalf of the successor firms of the Union Carbide, Attorney General R Venkataramani for the Centre and senior advocate Sanjay Parikh and advocate Karuna Nundy for the victims.

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The Centre wanted another Rs 7,844 crore from the US-based UCC's successor firms over and above the $470 million (Rs 3, 866 crore) it got from the American company as part of the settlement in 1989.

In its curative plea filed in 2010, the Centre has contended that the compensation, determined in 1989, was arrived at on assumptions of truth unrelated to realities. The court had issued notice in the matter in 2011.

Opposing the plea, the company, submitted that there should be a finality to the litigation as the curative petition was filed 19 years after the review petition was decided.