SC rejects Centre's plea seeking additional compensation for Bhopal gas tragedy victims

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed 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 Bhopal gas tragedy that claimed more than 3,000 lives and caused huge damage to the environment.

By a unanimous view, a bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, Abhay S Oka, Vikram Nath and J K Maheshwari rejected the plea filed by the Union government in 2010, saying it has no foundation on legal principles.

The court said entertaining the plea decades after the settlement will open a Pandora's box.

It also expressed dissatisfaction over the Union government raking up the issue decades after the settlement without furnishing any rationale for it.

The court also said the settlement could be set aside on the ground of fraud alone but no such claim has been pleaded by the Union government.

It said that it was the responsibility of the Union government to make good of deficiency in the compensation. The apex court also pointed out there was gross negligence on the part of the government to take insurance policies for the victims.

Notably, 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.

The Centre wanted another Rs 7,844 crore from the US-based UCC's successor firms over and above the $470 million (Rs 715 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.