Bhopal gas tragedy: conflicting signal

The Supreme Court judgment dismissing the curative petitions against its verdict in the Bhopal gas criminal case leaves observers nonplussed.

ON May 11, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court unanimously delivered a judgment that, perhaps, should never be considered a precedent. The Bench, comprising Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia and Justices Altamas Kabir, R.V. Raveendran, B. Sudershan Reddy and Aftab Alam, held that a judgment delivered by the Supreme Court could not bind a lower court and that no decision by any court, including the Supreme Court, could be read in a manner as to nullify the express provisions of an Act or the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

The judgment, according to several experts, is deeply flawed. The Bench delivered the judgment while dismissing curative petitions filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and others for recalling and setting aside the Supreme Court’s judgment in Keshub Mahindra vs State of Madhya Pradesh, delivered on September 13, 1996. In Keshub Mahindra, a two-judge Bench, comprising Justice A. Ahmadi and Justice S. Majmudar, had quashed the charge of culpable homicide under Section 304 (Part II) of the Indian Penal Code, framed by the sessions court, against nine Indian accused in the Bhopal gas disaster criminal case and had directed the trial court to frame charges against them under Section 304-A, IPC.

The three foreign accused – the then chief of the Union Carbide Corporation, Warren Anderson; UCC; and Union Carbide Eastern Inc. – were absconding and did not, like the Indian accused, appeal against the charge of culpable homicide framed by the trial court. The Madhya Pradesh High Court had upheld the charge of culpable homicide against the accused before they went in appeal in the Supreme Court.

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