IS
THE INDIAN NUCLEAR LAW MEANT FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD? – IS IT NOT AN IMMUNITY IN
THE NAME OF LIABILITY – A CRITIQUE
By
Dr T Padma., LLM., Ph D (Law)
kethepadma@gmail.com
“I do not know what the third world war
will be fought with, but the fourth world war will be fought with sticks and
stones.” –Albert Einstein
Introduction
The word environment is a broad
spectrum which brings within its hue hygienic atmosphere and ecological
balance. Saving this planet Earth is now of utmost concern to the entire
humanity. The world is witnessing a global crisis of environmental degradation.
The future of the earth is entirely linked with the sustainable development
that may take place in the various countries, both developed and developing.
They have to adopt a visionary approach in consonance with the needs of the man
and the earth. There is human threat to air, water and land.
India had been under the colonial
rule for about two centuries and even prior to that there were minor kingdoms
which did not pay attention to any sort of environmental concerns. After the
independence the primary concern of the administrators was to eradicate
poverty. Millions of people were below the poverty line and the literacy rate
was also very poor. The population growth was at alarmingly high rate. All
these factors contributed to serious environmental degradation and the persons who
were mostly affected by this environmental degradation were the poor and the
disadvantage sections of the society. They were the first victims of the poor
sanitation, bad air, contaminated water, scarce food, fuel and fodder. For
millions of Indians their only wealth and common property resources were
threatened by environmental degradation.
India
in 2008 signed a landmark civil nuclear deal with United States but its
implementation hit a roadblock owing to mounting opposition from Indian
political groups following a verdict by court on the Bhopal gas disaster that
was soft on the UCC responsible for the Bhopal accident in 1984.
America's General Electric Co. and Westinghouse
Electric Corp. are among the foreign energy suppliers that stand to gain a share
of India's civilian nuclear business estimated as possibly reaching $150
billion a year.
India’s Civil Liability for Nuclear
Damage Act, 2010 is meant to pave the way for India to sign International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s
Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage (CSC) treaty, which
seeks to establish a uniform global legal regime for the compensation of
victims in the event of a nuclear accident. After
the enactment of the Act on 22/09/2010, India signed the IAEA’s Convention on
27/10/2010 on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage (CSC) treaty, ahead
of US President, Barack Obama’s November, 2010 visit to India. The
Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010 raises some crucial questions for
India.
1)
whether or not the liability under
the Act and the pre-existing IAEA’s compensation treaty in the supreme interest
of present and future generation of Indians?
2)
If India decides to join the CSC,
it will be an exercise in surrendering its sovereignty to a conflict of
interest ridden regime like IAEA which is both the promoter and regulator of
nuclear commerce.
3)
Will the Act strengthen the nuclear
power industry in India by facilitating the flow of technology and machinery
from Western countries?
4)
Will it take away the expected benefit,
because of liability provisions stipulated therein, which are considered as
impediments for entry of suppliers?
5)
Whether the Government of India did yield to
pressures from various quarters and has strengthened the provisions of liability
compared to the earlier draft, albeit only slightly!
6)
Whether supplying defective machinery, itself,
with or without contract, with or without negligence, makes the supplier liable
under general principles of liability.
7)
Whether we need to learn any new lessons in
the light of the recent nuclear crisis in Japan after the tsunami, to fine-tune
our existing emergency preparedness in the country?
Legal Principles Involved
1)
Absolute Liability
Rylands
vs. Fletcher[1],
the celebrated UK case decided in 1868, laid down a cardinal rule, “A person who, for his own purpose, brings
on his land and collects and keeps there, anything likely to do mischief if it
escapes, must keep it in at his peril, and if he does not do so, is prima facie
answerable for all the damage which is the natural consequence of its escape.”
In other words, the duty is not merely the general negative duty to refrain
from active injury, but, a positive duty to guard and protect one’s neighbours,
lest they suffer harm by reason of dangerous things artificially brought on
one’s land – and the duty is absolute because it is independent of any
negligence on the part of the defendant or his servants. This rule is referred
to as the rule of “strict liability”
or “absolute liability”. It is also
referred to as “no fault liability”,
where the wrong-doer will be liable with or without proof of fault by the
claimant. However, it does recognize some exceptions also.
In
the Indian context, the Supreme Court laid down the principle of “absolute liability” in Shriram Gas Leak case [M.C. Mehta vs. Union
of India[2]]
thus: “Where an enterprise is engaged in
a hazardous or inherently dangerous activity and harm results to any one on
account of an accident or in the operation of such hazardous or inherently dangerous
activity resulting for example, escape of toxic gas, the enterprise is strictly
and absolutely liable to compensate all those who are affected by the accident
and such liability is not subject to any of the exceptions which operate
vis-a-vis the tortuous principle of strict liability under the rule in Rylands
v Fletcher.” Furthermore, the Parliament has codified the principle of
absolute liability by enacting the Public Liability Insurance Act 1991. Section
3 of the said Act says that, in any claim the claimant shall not be required to
plead and establish that the death, injury or damage in respect of which the
claim has been made was due to any wrongful act, neglect or default of any
persons.
2)
Producer’s
Liability
After
strict liability, the concept of strict “Product
Liability” was developed in Donogue
vs. Stevenson[3],
another well-known case. It is a kind of product related strict liability,
which exempts non-interfering middle agencies such as links between maker and
seller. The House of Lords held that a manufacturer of products, which he sells
in such a form as to show that he intends them to reach the consumer in the
form in which they left him, owes a duty to the consumer to take reasonable
care. There is no contractual duty in this situation as there was no contract
at all. But a tortuous duty is presumed by courts of law, breach of which makes
the manufacturer liable. From this, emerged the “Consumer Rights and Product liability” rule. Applying this
principle, if, a nuclear reactor is defective, and that causes an accident,
more than an operator it is the maker or supplier who should take up the
responsibility of defective product i.e., the reactor.
3)
Public
Trust Doctrine- American Courts
The American courts developed a Public Trust
Doctrine to the effect that the resources like air, sea, water and forests were
of such great importance to the people as a whole that it would be wholly
unjustified to make them a subject of private ownership. These resources were the gifts of nature and
they should be made freely available to everyone irrespective of the status in
life. State has the duty to protect the
resources for the enjoyment of the general public rather than to permit their
exploitation for commercial purposes by private owners. The American courts emphasized that
protection from ecological pollution was among the purposes of public trust.
Environmental Law in the Indian
context
Article 226 and Article 32 of the
Constitution gives the right to citizens to approach the High Court and Supreme
Court respectively to enforce their fundamental rights. It is also to be noted
that Article 21 of the Constitution guarantees one of the important fundamental
right to the citizens and says that no person shall be deprived of his life
"right to life" contained in Article 21 has been given a very wide
interpretation by the Supreme Court of India. Article 48-A which is one of the
Directive Principles of State Policy states that the State shall endeavour to
protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wild life
of the country. Part IV–A was added to the Constitution by the Constitution (42nd Amendment)
Act, 1976 and Article 51-A(g) thereof specifically says that it shall be the
duty of every citizen of India to protect and improve the natural environment
including forests, lakes, rivers and wild life, and to have compassion for
living creatures.
One of the earliest cases which
came to the Supreme Court of India was Municipal Council, Ratlam vs
Vardhichand[4]
followed by a series of other public interest litigations concerning vehicular
pollution, illegal mining, pollution of Ganga water, pollution of water by
tanneries, Taj Mahal. In many of these cases, Expert Committee were constituted
and the court expanded the scope of Article 32 and said that in
appropriate cases the court can award compensation to the affected party
deviating from the established
principles of exceptions to the ‘Rule of
strict liability’ laid down
in Rylands vs Fletcher.[5]
The position
taken by the American Courts was quoted by the Indian Supreme Court in M.C. Mehta v Kamal Nath[6]. Subsequently the Hinch Lal Tiwari v Kamala Devi and others[7],
the Supreme Court reaffirmed the view stating:
“It is important to notice that material resources of the community like
forests, ponds, hillock, mountains etc., are nature’s bounty. They maintain delicate ecological
balance. They need to be protected for a
proper and healthy environment which enables people to enjoy a quality of life
which is the essence of the guaranteed right under Article 21 of the
Constitution.”
In
its efforts to protect the environment, the Indian Judiciary in general have
relied on the ‘public trust doctrine’,
‘precautionary principle’, ‘polluter pays principle’, ‘the doctrine of strict and absolute
liability’, ‘the exemplary damages
principle’, ‘the pollution fine
principle’ and ‘inter-generational
equity principle’ apart from the existing law of the land. Another guiding
principle has been that of adopting a ‘model
of sustainable development’. The consistent position adopted by the courts
as enunciated in one of its judgments has been that there can neither be
development at the cost of the environment or environment at the cost of
development.
Bhopal
Gas Disaster
The Bhopal
disaster is the world's worst industrial catastrophe happened on 2/3 December, 1984. A leak of ‘methyl isocyanate’ gas and other chemicals from the plant resulted in the exposure of
hundreds of thousands of people during 1984. Immediate death toll was 2,259 and
total deaths were more than 15,000. Leakage caused injuries to 5,58,125
persons. The case was settled at a total claim of
$ 470 million. Indian Supreme Court upheld this amount by dismissing all other
outstanding petitions against UCC.
UCC Chairman and CEO Warren
Anderson was arrested and released on bail by the Madhya Pradesh Police in
Bhopal on December 7, 1984. The arrest, which took place at the airport,
ensured Anderson would meet no harm by the Bhopal community. Anderson was taken to UCC's Guest house after
which he was released six hours later on $2,100 bail and flown out on a
Government plane.
In June 2010 (after 25
years), seven former employees of the Union Carbide subsidiary, all Indian
nationals and many in their 70s, were convicted of causing death by negligence and each sentenced to two
years imprisonment and fined ` 1 lakh. All were released on bail
shortly after the verdict.
Union Carbide sold its Indian subsidiary, which had operated the
Bhopal plant, to Eveready Industries India
Limited, in 1994. Dow Chemical Company purchased UCC in 2001 for $10.3 billion in stock and debt. Dow
contends the UCC settlement payment fulfilled Dow's financial responsibility
for the disaster.
After long waiting of 25 years the
Victims have received a meager amount of compensation of ` 25,000 (approx) per head in two installments. This settlement
reveals major deficiencies in our legal system and corroborates the view taken
by the Union of India before the US Court “that
the Indian judiciary has yet to reach maturity due to the restraints placed
upon it due to the British Rule, and the Indian Courts are not up to the task
of conducting the said litigation”.[8]
It is not out of context to mention here that the Union
Carbide Corporation was also in the business of nuclear power and its current
owner, The Dow Chemicals Company (since February 6, 2001), too offers a range
of nuclear grade resins that are designed and manufactured to meet the
requirements of the nuclear power industry.
BP
Oil Spill (USA)
BP Oil Spill is the largest accidental
marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. The spill stemmed from a sea-floor oil gusher that resulted from the April
20, 2010 explosion of Deepwater
Horizon, which drilled on the British Petroleum -operated Macondo Prospect. The explosion killed 11 men working on the
platform and injured 17 others. At the instance of President
Obama, BP executives agreed and created a $ 20 billion spill
response fund, within three month’s time from the accident.
A comparison of the above two cases would reveal how effective are we in
India in settlement of the claims of the thousands of the Gas victims in Bhopal
Disaster.
Indian Nuclear Law is Harsh to
Whom?
The Public Liability Insurance Act
1991 in section 2 defined ‘accident’ as an accident involving a fortuitous,
sudden or unintentional occurrence while handling any hazardous substance
resulting in continuous, intermittent or repeated exposure to death of or
injury to any person or damage to any property but does not include an accident
by reason of war or radio activity. Two questions arise. First, why should not
the State, whose sole responsibility is welfare of the people, give relief to
the victims of “war”? And why should it exempt it from the definition of
‘accident’ which will deny the victims from claiming the damages under the
mechanism provided by the Public Liability Insurance Act 1991? Second, even if
it is assumed that the war is beyond control of State, why should it claim
exemption from accidents of ‘radio activity’?
It is difficult to understand why
the Government is insisting on proof of ‘intention’ in civil claim of damages.
It is well within the logic and law to seek strict proof of intention and
guilty mind of proof of intention and guilty mind of nuclear machinery supplier
‘to cause nuclear damage of particular
people in India’ to make the operator or supplier of nuclear reactor to
undergo life imprisonment or suffer death penalty. But, why the operator of a
defective nuclear reactor, now Indian State or a government company be solely
liable and US or French or other foreign nuclear reactor suppliers be totally
exempt from liability in civil law for payment of damages? The Act [section
2(1)] defined ‘operator’ as the Central Government or any authority of
corporation established by it or a Government company who has been granted a
licence pursuant to the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 for the operation of that
installation.
Is it not the Immunity in the name
of Liability?
The draft Bill (prior to changes)
made the operator of a nuclear facility wholly liable for any damage stemming
from an accident. However, responding to stiff resistance and to secure the
necessary numerical strength to pass the Bill, the draft of section 17 was
further changed, as:
Sec 17. The Operator of the Nuclear
Installation after paying the compensation for nuclear damage in accordance
with Section 6, shall have a right to recourse where:–
a) Such
right is expressly provided for in a contract in writing;
b) The
Nuclear incident has resulted as a consequence of an act of suppliers or his
employees, which includes supply of equipment or material or patent or latent
defects or sub standard services;
c) The
Nuclear incident has resulted from the act of commission or omission of an
individual done with the intent to cause nuclear damage.
However, by not incorporating ‘or’
between three sub-clauses the Act carried forward the ‘confusion’ as to
interpretation, i.e., whether all three clauses need to be fulfilled or any one
of them would be enough to impose liability on supplier. The ‘and’ is removed
but ‘or’ is not added. Liability of supplier continues to be uncertain, even
after the amendment.
Another improvised recommendation
of Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC) is to enhance the operator’s
liability cap from `
500 crore to `
1500 crore. Total liability for each nuclear incident remains capped at 300
million SDRs (`
2122.40 crore or $ 455 million) as per clause 6(1). This amount is less than
even the Bhopal settlement of $ 470 million, which has been acknowledged as
grossly inadequate by the Government itself. The moot question before all of us
is, how can anybody fix the quantum of damage of nuclear radioactivity or other
accident in advance? And why should anybody fix such quantum. This is nothing
but limiting the operator’s liability and also extending immunity beyond, which
is not in tune with accepted liability jurisprudence.
India hasn't learned lessons of
Bhopal
In December, 1984, India witnessed one of the
greatest man-made calamities in Bhopal, the capital city of the State of Madhya
Pradesh, from a factory owned by Union Carbide India Limited. Methyl
Isocyanate, a highly poisonous gas leaked out and it resulted in the death of
more than three thousand persons who were mostly the hutment-dwellers in the
near vicinity of the factory. The air carried the leaked deadly poisonous gas
to the thickly populated areas and about six lakhs people suffered various
bodily injuries. Bhopal gas tragedy is described as another ‘Hiroshima of the Chemical Industry’, one
of the worst commercial industrial disasters in history killing thousands of
people as a consequence of corporate delinquency. The polluted site of the
abandoned Union Carbide factory is still said to be poisoning the groundwater
of the area.
The peculiar problem regarding the claim of
compensation was involved because of such a large number of victims, most of
those belonging to the lower economic strata. The Union of India filed a suit
on behalf of all the claimants , against the UCC in the United States District
Court of the New York. The UCC pleaded
for the dismissal of the suit on the grounds of ‘ forum non conveniens’ i.e the suit can be more conveniently tried
in India as apart from many other factors, India was the place of the
catastrophe , and the plant personnel , victims , witnesses , documentary and
all related evidence were located there. The Union of India, however,
maintained that the Indian judiciary has yet to reach maturity due to the
restraints placed upon it due to the British Rule, and the Indian Courts are
not up to the task of conducting the said litigation. Judge Keenon accepted the
plea of forum non conveniens put
forward by UCC, rejected the plea of the Union of India and dismissed the
Indian action on that ground. After the dismissal of the suit in U.S.A. the
Union of India filed a suit in the District Court of Bhopal.
The Indian government after first
suing the company for $3.3 billion in 1985, announced an out-of-court
settlement of $470 million in February 1989. During 1996 the Apex Court’s
ruling watered down the charges against the accused from culpable homicide
(with maximum punishment of 10 years' jail term) to criminal negligence
(maximum sentence two years).
The
Indian Government continues to pursue criminal charges against the former Union
Carbide Chairman, Warren Anderson. Newspapers have reported that the United
States has rejected India's request to extradite Anderson, who has retired and
lives in New York.
This Gas Tragedy resulted in an enactment of the
Environment Protection Act, 1986 by the Indian Parliament.
None of the international nuclear liability
conventions set any cap on total liability, but only set a floor. Countries
like South Korea and Sweden have set operator’s liability at 300 million SDRs,
not total liability. The operator’s liability in the US is $ 11.9 billion.
Countries like Japan, Russia and Germany do not have any cap on total
liability. In contrast, the Indian Bill seeks to cap total liability to 300
million SDRs, displaying scant regard for the lives and security of it’s
people and the nation hasn't learned lessons even after Bhopal disaster.
Position
of Corporate Criminal Liability in India
The
Indian Supreme Court in Standard Chartered Bank observed that the view
of different High Courts in India was very inconsistent on this issue. For
example, in State of Maharasthra v. Syndicate Transport[9],the
Bombay High Court had held that the company could not be prosecuted for
offences which necessarily entailed corporal punishment or imprisonment;
prosecuting a company for such offences would only result in a trial with a
verdict of guilty and no effective order by way of a sentence. On the other
hand, in Oswal Vanaspati & Allied Industries v. State of Uttar Pradesh[10],
the appellant-company had sought to quash a criminal complaint, arguing that
the company could not be prosecuted for the particular criminal offence in
question, as the sentence of imprisonment provided under that section was
mandatory. The Full Bench of the Allahabad High Court had disagreed:
“A company being a juristic person cannot
obviously be sentenced to imprisonment as it cannot suffer imprisonment. . . .
It is settled law that sentence or punishment must follow conviction; and if only
corporal punishment is prescribed, a company which is a juristic person cannot
be prosecuted as it cannot be punished. If, however, both sentence of
imprisonment and fine is prescribed for natural persons and juristic persons
jointly, then, though the sentence of imprisonment cannot be awarded to a
company, the sentence of fine can be imposed on it. . . . Legal sentence is the
sentence prescribed by law. A sentence which is in excess of the sentence
prescribed is always illegal; but a sentence which is less than the sentence
prescribed may not in all cases be illegal”.
The
Indian Supreme Court in Standard Chartered Bank also referred to an old
decision of the United States Supreme Court, United States v. Union Supply[11].
In that case, a corporation was indicted for willfully violating a statute that
required the wholesale dealers in oleomargarine to keep certain books and make
certain returns. Any person who willfully violated this provision was liable to
be punished with a fine of not less than fifty dollars and not exceeding five
hundred dollars and imprisonment for not less than 30 days and not more than
six months. It is interesting to note that for the offence under Section 5 of
the statute at issue, the Court had discretionary power to punish by either
fine or imprisonment, whereas under Section 6 of the statute (the
section that was actually violated in Union Supply), both types of
punishment were to be imposed in all cases. The corporation moved to quash the
indictment, and the District Court quashed it on the grounds that Section 6 was
not applicable to the corporations. The United States Supreme Court reversed
the District Court's judgment. Justice Holmes held:
It
seems to us that a reasonable interpretation of the words used does not lead to
such a result. If we compare Section 5, the application of one of the penalties
rather than of both is made to depend, not on the character of the defendant,
but on the discretion of the Judge; yet, there, corporations are mentioned in
terms. And if we free our minds from the notion that criminal statutes must be
construed by some artificial and conventional rule, the natural inference, when
a statute prescribes two independent penalties, is that it means to inflict
them so far as it can, and that, if one of them is impossible, it does not
mean, on that account, to let the defendant escape.
Now,
the Indian Supreme Court has settled the disputed question of criminal
liability of a corporation. The Standard Chartered Bank[12]
decision overrules prior decisions to the contrary and holds that corporations
are liable for criminal offences and can be prosecuted and punished, at least
with fines. As the human cost of industrial disasters have
created a compelling logic to do away with
the idea of limited liability to companies, the proposed Companies Amendment
Bill,2009 should make a beginning in the form of class action Law suits, in
order to make these legal-artificial persons accountable to our legislature.
Conclusion
The
right to life is a fundamental right in India. So this macro-murder
(Bhopal Gas
Tragedy), the worst industrial carnage in
history, is a huge blot. An untested facility was installed in India with no
examination of the potential dangers, as if it were a mere soda factory. The
act of installation in itself was a crime. A corporate Director usually does
not personally commit crimes himself or herself. These are committed perhaps
without their knowledge, but with their connivance and vicarious awareness.
Nevertheless, culpability exists in a higher dimension of punitive
jurisprudence. This is the basis of culpability in corporate crimes and
offences. To plead that Union Carbide or Anderson did not physically switch on
equipment or were not responsible for the acts of commission or omission that
caused the leakage is no argument of innocence. But for the installation of
such a facility, the deaths would not have happened. If a nuclear plant were
set up that exploded and wiped out thousands of lives, those who set up and
operated it are vicariously guilty, not by ‘mens
rea’ but morally and legally.
Not
with standing an express provision for the nuclear liability in any Indian law,
the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution, has been interpreted to
include within its ambit, the protection and preservation of environment from
pollution.
The
Supreme Court in the Oleum Gas Leak case ruled that an enterprise which is
engaged in a hazardous or inherently dangerous industry with the potential to
cause widespread environmental damage, owes an absolute and non-delegable duty
to the community to ensure that no harm results to anyone.
It was also held that in case of an
accident, irrespective of negligence, the enterprise shall be strictly and
absolutely liable to compensate all those who are affected. As nuclear
enterprises deal with hazardous material which has the potential to cause
widespread environmental damage, under the present legal scenario, it would be
strictly liable to compensate all affected by a nuclear accident.
Another
important environmental principle which has been recognised both in
international law and domestic law is the ‘polluter
pays principle’. This principle, adopted to further sustainable
development, extends the liability of an enterprise not only to compensate the
victims of pollution but also the cost of restoring the environmental
degradation. In ‘the Indian Council for
Enviro-Legal Action case[13]’,
the Supreme Court applied this principle to hold that it is the polluting
industry which will be liable for the damage it caused and not the government.
Applying the polluter pays principle to nuclear liability, liability should lie
exclusively with the nuclear enterprise and not the government.
On
the topic of nuclear liability there are four major international conventions -
the 1960 Paris Convention, the 1963 Vienna Convention, 1997 Protocol to amend
Vienna Convention and the 1997 Convention on Supplementary Compensation for
Nuclear Damage (CSC). The CSC, which is still not in force, is only available
to members of either the Paris or the Vienna conventions and countries that
have enacted a domestic law in compliance with the law annexed to the CSC. As India is not party to any of these
conventions, it has to get a national law which complies with the provisions of
the CSC annex for it to be a party to the CSC. The CSC does not require a limit
in the liability and provides for supplementary compensation which would be
provided through contributions from the different state-parties.
The nuclear liability bill by capping the liability arising out of a
nuclear incident appears to be an effort to protect the nuclear industry at the
cost of the fundamental rights of the citizens. The nuclear liability Act
presents a clear departure from the existing legal principles on liability
applied by the Supreme Court. The rationale behind such an exception for the
inherently hazardous nuclear industry is not clear. The premise that limiting
liability is essential for joining an international convention like CSC does
not have any merit as the convention does not require the state to limit the
liability.
The rationale behind fixing the liability of the operators at a very low
amount seems to be for allowing the nuclear operators to easily acquire the
mandatory insurance cover required by the Act. With the passing of the Indo-US
Nuclear Deal, private companies are expected to start its operations in India.
The Act seems to be an effort to lure foreign enterprises to enter the nuclear
industry to meet India’s enormous energy requirements. However, to achieve
this, the Act has burdened the taxpayer and has restricted the right of victims
protected by the Constitution.
While British Petroleum (BP) is facing a bill of up to $34 billion from
the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster after US senators demanded the oil
company deposited $20 billion (about ` 92000 crore) into a ring-fenced
account to meet escalating compensation costs, the way Indian legislators are
agreeing to a ` 1500 crore cap on nuclear disaster from large nuclear power
plants, ` 300 crore cap for institutions
involved in reprocessing fuel and ` 100 crore cap for small research
reactors is not at all in the public interest or in the interest of people of
India but to insulate the suppliers from their liabilities in case of any
disaster/calamity.
Further, there is a very urgent need for a Joint Parliamentary Committee
(sans conflict of interest) to probe and examine the current liability regime
in general and nuclear liability regime in particular in the developed
countries besides a High Powered Trans-disciplinary Independent Experts
Committee preferably under the supervision of the UN to study the status of adverse
enviro-occupational hazards world over.
In the light of the nuclear crisis in Japan after the tsunami, India
should revisit all the safety aspects of its atomic plants in the country and
fine-tune the existing emergency preparedness rather than Jumping to the
conclusions that our power reactors will not suffer a similar kind of
situation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Published
in Supreme Court Journal / Weekly
March,
2011 PART-9]
[1] Rylands vs.
Fletcher; (1868) LR 3 HK 330
[2] M.C. Mehta
vs. Union of India; (1987) 1 SCC 395, AIR 1987 Sc 965
[3] Donogue vs.
Stevenson; 1932 AC 562
[4] Municipal Council, Ratlam vs
Vardhichand, AIR 1980 SC 1622
[5] Rylands vs Fletcher; (1868) LR 3 HL 330
[6] M.C. Mehta v
Kamal Nath (1997) 1 SCC 388
[7] Hinch Lal
Tiwari v Kamala Devi and others (2001)6 SCC 496
[8] Excerpts
from the pleadings of the Govt. of India before the United States District
Court of New York.
[9] State of Maharasthra v. Syndicate Transport; (1963)
Bom. L.R. 197
[10] Oswal Vanaspati & Allied Industries v. State
of Uttar Pradesh; (1993) 1 Comp.L.J. 172
[11] United States Supreme Court, United States v.
Union Supply; 215 U.S. 50 (1909)
[12] Standard Chartered Bank and Ors v. Directorate of
Enforcement; A.I.R. 2005 S.C. 2622
[13] Indian Council for
Enviro-Legal
Action v Union of India; AIR 1996 SC 1446
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