How the law dealt with the Union Carbide Gas Slaughter: The legal surroundings of the 26 year old anathema

How the law dealt with the Union Carbide Gas Slaughter: The legal surroundings of the 26 year old anathema – Part I

Kartikeya Tanna

Aug 23, 2010

INTRODUCTION

In our Westminster form of Government, the Executive is a subset of the Legislature. In other words, a few lawmakers get the privilege of forming the Government depending on the electoral favour their party obtains in the composition of the Parliament and the choice of the country’s top leader and/or the President of the largest party. The dual role that these few lawmakers play, puts them in a unique position in which they not only get to participate in voting for laws to be passed or changed, but have the onus of leading their respective departments in the governance of the nation. By that virtue, they have to be completely aware of the bounds of laws that have been passed by them or their predecessors and yet, govern the nation within the limitation of the laws. The Judiciary has a limited mandate. It cannot, despite a strongly felt need, make a bad law in assuaging the fears or strong feelings of the nation. The politicians amongst those lawmakers in the Executive, however, have the largest direct responsibility towards the nation because of the proximity they enjoy with the electorate.

Law plays a vital role in administering of various functions. Law transcends the bounds of the three wings of the country. The Legislature makes law, the Executive administers the law and the Judiciary imparts justice as per the law. This interface between the Legislature, Executive and the Judiciary, with the fourth wing of the nation – the Media – responsible for highlighting crucial matters of public interest, has been played in the most discernible fashion in the Union Carbide Gas Slaughter. The media choose sensationalism breeding out of such a torrid disaster, over a carefully studied coverage. The rarefied nature of debates on media channels and the manufactured anger emanating out of them led to a regurgitation of the rhetorical shibboleths and jingoistic conclusions to contribute one’s bit towards showing this anger. The discussions on media channels, for example, virtually incriminated Justice Ahmadi almost accusing him of diluting the criminal charges against the accused and thereby, obfuscated the venal role of the criminals-in-chief of the primary grievances held by the nation in this disaster in the initial coverage.

The pinnacle of anger was “26 years!” when reasonably informed minds know that the criminal trial resumed only through a Supreme Court directive in 1991 and the trial witnessed intermittent periods in between where the Centre was having a tryst with destiny of hoping to be successful in extraditing Warren Anderson. This process reflected prolonged prevarication or, simply, nonchalance amongst successive Governments of India. Only recently has the Judiciary stepped in to put an end to the willful abuse of the criminal justice system which is an anachronism. Supreme Court Judges and Judges of the lower courts have now taken the bull by its horns in censuring and preventing canny lawyers on both sides that intend to use protraction as a means to deprive justice of any justness. While the nation learns lessons and tries to control its fumes, it is worthwhile exploring, in necessary detail, how law interfaced with the tragedy.

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Comments(4)

1. "Kartikeya - thank you for your excellent and concise analysis. Looking forward to Part II. Insofar as the Warren Andersen saga is concerned, it is worth pointing out for the benefit of the readers that Mr. Andersen was not present in Bhopal at the time when the gas leak occurred. He only travelled there from the US via New Delhi in the following days, and his travel was preceded by a prior assurance of safe passage provided by the Government of India. As you might surmise, in the absence of such an assurance, it is likely that Mr. Andersen would not have visited India, and would not have been placed under arrest in the first place. Thus, given that safe passage had been granted, the Government of India had an obligation to ensure that he was not unduly detained, and his expeditious release was thus necessitated. I do not believe that the Government of India acted maliciously in facilitating Mr. Andersen return to the US - in fact, frankly, they did not have much of an option in the matter. As you have pointed out, the real failures of successive governments - both Central and State - have been the complete lack of any meaningful assistance to the victims and the grossly insensitive manner in which they have been treated. ". Apocalyptic Sage, Dallas, TX
2. "A very objective analysis. For more facts read the Black Box of Bhopal.". Don, Richardson, TX
3. "@Apocalyptic, thank you for your analysis. You are bang on point about the Anderson saga. Arjun Singh's statement in the Parliament and various disclosures (the most pertinent being the one by the then Foreign Secretary) indicate that Warren Anderson wanted to come to India to see the effect of the disaster and he was not to be arrested. And though this is just an opinion, it is widely believed that the MP Government went against the central mandate and arrested him for local electoral favor. Whatever may be the truth, the mishandling exacerbated public anger and is still a mess today. @Don - thank you for the information.". Kartikeya Tanna, Washington, D.C.
4. "sir, i would like to know your critical opinion of the supreme court judgement on the recent iridium case regarding corporate criminal liability. what do u think are the shortcomings of the judgement and what grounds can it be appealed upon (hypothetically) thankyou". Jesun , NALSAR University Of Law, Hyderabad

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