Abstract of the paper to be presented by Dr. S.

Muralidhar, Advocate, Supreme Court at

the proposed International Conference on Bhopal and its Effects on Process
Safety to be held at IIT Kanpur between December 1 and 3, 2004.
This paper by a lawyer who has handled the litigation for the Bhopal gas victims in the
Supreme Court for over 10 years will begin with a narration of the chronological events
leading to and following the Bhopal gas leak disaster. It will proceed to focus on:
(i)

(ii)

(iii)

(iv)

(v)

The inability of the judicial system to cope with mass disasters a broad
overview will be given of the various strands of litigation emanating from the
event, none of which has been able to provide complete justice to the victim of the
disaster.
The failure of legal imagination the statutory laws concerning civil and criminal
liability of corporations which undertake hazardous operations have not been
strengthened to ensure that the tortfeasor is made to pay for the consequences of
operating a potentially harmful enterprise. The element of risk and safety remains
unaddressed. The law as it stands today, requires the risk bearer (the unwitting
citizen) to also bear the losses arising from an accident that causes death or
permanent disablement. The few laws that have been enacted, e.g., the Public
Liability Insurance Act, 1991 and the National Environmental Tribunals Act, 1995
either address a very small area of the entire problem or have simply not been
notified. Corporate criminal liability still remains elusive.
The lack of sensitivity of the legal profession a major cause for concern was the
absence of legal aid in Bhopal as a result of which every claimant had to part with
a substantial portion of the already meagre amount of compensation towards fees
for the lawyer. There has been no attempt by the professional bodies to constitute
any fund for providing legal aid. The states response has also been inadequate.
The failure of the medical profession in the 20 years since the disaster, the
premier medical research institution in the country, the Indian Council for
Medical Research (ICMR) has not only failed to come up with a treatment
protocol but surprisingly even abandoned medical research abruptly in 1994. It
has taken a PIL and orders of the Supreme Court to constitute in 2004 an advisory
committee and a monitoring committee to oversee medical relief and
rehabilitation of the Bhopal gas victims. A number of unqualified persons have
exploited the situation and even the qualified ones have made the victims undergo
tests and treatment unrelated to their ailment. This throws up serious issues of
medical ethics as well.
The jurisprudence of atonement the response of society and the media has been
merely symbolic. Every anniversary of the disaster provides the occasion for
atonement followed by a collective amnesia for the remaining period. The
indifference displayed to the plight of the victim is a matter that requires to be
addressed by all.

The paper will conclude with a few suggestions from the point of view of a legal
practitioner.

Brief bio-data:
Dr. S.Muralidhar enrolled as an advocate in September 1984 in Chennai and has been
practising in the Supreme Court of India since 1987. His area of work includes
constitutional law, election law, criminal law, human rights, legal aid and public interest
litigation. He is the lawyer for the victims of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy and is pursuing
their cases in the Supreme Court for monetary compensation, medical relief and
rehabilitation. He served as a member on the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee
from 2000 to 2004. He is a visiting faculty at the National Judicial Academy in Bhopal.
He has written and spoken widely on access to justice, public interest litigation,
economic, social and cultural rights and death penalty. His book titled Law, Poverty and
Legal Aid: Access to Criminal Justice was released in August 2004. Dr. Muralidhar
earned his doctorate from the University of Delhi and is a part-time Member of the Law
Commission of India.