Summary
Nineteen years after the 1989 settlement under which Union Carbide Corporation paid US$ 470 million for all claims arising from the Bhopal gas disaster, the Union of India filed curative petitions seeking not to set the settlement aside but to 'top up' the amount, contending that it rested on wrong assumptions about the number of victims. The Supreme Court dismissed the petitions: curative jurisdiction is narrow and the Union had filed no review; a settlement is either valid or vitiated by fraud, which was not pleaded, and no legal principle supports a unilateral top-up; the Union's own figures showed the fund in surplus with Rs. 50 crores still undisbursed; and the review judgment had placed any deficiency on the Union as a welfare State, which failed even to take out the directed insurance cover.
Issues
- Whether curative petitions filed by the Union of India two decades after the Bhopal gas disaster settlement, without any prior review petition, are maintainable to enhance the settlement amount payable by Union Carbide Corporation.
- Whether a settlement recorded by the Court can be 'topped up' on the ground that the number of victims and the costs of relief exceeded the assumptions on which it was based.
Provisions considered
- Articles 137 and 142, Constitution of IndiaCurative jurisdiction, being a re-examination of a final judgment already subjected to review, cannot be expansive; the Court declined to devise under Article 142 a method of topping up a consensual settlement so as to impose on UCC a greater liability than it agreed to bear. (¶¶ 23, 26, 28, 47)
- Sections 6 and 9 and the 1985 Scheme, Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster (Processing of Claims) Act, 1985The Act vested in the Central Government the exclusive right to represent claimants and to compromise; claims have been adjudicated by the Welfare Commissioner under the Scheme, and the Rs. 50 crores remaining with the Reserve Bank is to be used by the Union to satisfy pending claims under the Act. (¶¶ 2, 30, 45, 48)
Held
- The settlement was reached after several sittings to provide immediate succour to victims, was upheld in review save as to criminal liability, and attempts by private parties to reopen it were opposed by the Union itself; the review judgment placed on the Union, as a welfare State, the duty to make good any deficiency and to obtain group medical insurance for future victims, which it never did. The Union cannot be negligent in that respect and then seek to fix the liability on UCC. (¶¶ 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 13, 41, 46)
- The Union's own data showed the settlement amount exceeded requirements in every category except minor injuries, which arose from its own expanded categorisation; the fund grew through interest and exchange-rate movement, all claims were adjudicated with compensation roughly doubled on pro rata disbursal, and a surplus remains. A top-up has no foundation in law; a settlement is valid or is set aside for fraud, none being pleaded, and the claims for rehabilitation and environmental costs were foreseeable at the time. Closure of a lis matters, and reopening would only open a pandora's box in UCC's favour to the detriment of victims. (¶¶ 18, 37, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50)
Result
Curative petitions dismissed with parties to bear their own costs; the Rs. 50 crores lying with the Reserve Bank of India to be utilised by the Union of India to satisfy pending claims, if any, under the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster (Processing of Claims) Act, 1985 and the Scheme.