Ever since the Supreme Court approved the $470-million out-of-court settlement of compensation with Union Carbide Corporation in February 1989, hundreds of thousand gas affected citizens in Bhopal have continuously felt that they have been cheated because of the meagre compensation awarded to them and also since the multinational company has not been held accountable on the criminal liability front even quarter of a century after the gas disaster.
Within days of the poisonous gas leak in Bhopal, UCC had repeatedly expressed its desire for a mutual settlement. Its keenness for a “compromise” was explicit from the statement made by its then chairman Warren Anderson soon after his return from Bhopal after his arrest and subsequent release on December 7, 1984. At a press conference at Danbury, USA on December 10, he had said that an “equitable resolution of the compensation question was possible without resort to the path of litigation.”
John Coale (who was retained by more than 6,000 victims to fight their case in the US courts), also held the same view. Upon his arrival in Washington D.C. from Bhopal on December 12, he had said “we had rather not go through a long drawn out battle in the courts.”
The similarity in the stand taken by Anderson and Coale was cause for concern among those closely watching the developments on the legal front immediately after the gas leak disaster.
In March 1986, a section of the US media had disclosed that Union Carbide Corporation had agreed to pay $350 million as compensation to the gas victims. When Union Carbide realised that it would be difficult to negotiate with the Indian government, it mutually worked out a compromise settlement offer of $350 million with a three-member committee of US attorneys representing a large number of victims in the US courts. John P. Coale and Arthur Lowy, representing this committee had come to Bhopal in the last week of March 1986 to discuss the compromise offer with the victims.
At a press conference called by these attorneys here on March 29, 1986, when this correspondent asked Mr Coale why he had failed to demand punitive damage from the multinational company before accepting a proposed settlement offer, Mr Coale replied that punitive damages were not possible since “deliberate negligence” on the part of Union Carbide Corporation was difficult to prove.
On July 31, 1998, the then Attorney General of India, Soli J. Sorabjee had also given a written opinion to the ministry of external affairs advising that the Supreme Court order in the Keshub Mahindra case “would apply to Mr Anderson also”.
On his advice, the government of India then sought opinion from a US solicitors firm, which took three years in stating that there were missing evidentiary links and without these links, the Indian government would not be able to convince a US court about its case for extradition of Mr Anderson. In his subsequent written opinion, Mr Sorabjee on August 6, 2001 told the government “I am not sanguine that at the end of the day the requisite evidentiary material would be forthcoming.”
Government of India had rejected the proposed settlement offer by the US lawyers taking the stand that the amount of $350 million fell short of what was fair and equitable. In this backdrop, on May 12, 1986, judge Keenan of the New York district court declared that India and not the US was the proper forum for such litigation. Three years later, in February 1989, the Supreme Court directed that there be an overall settlement of the claims for $470 million (about Rs 713 crore) and termination of all civil and criminal proceedings arising out of the Bhopal gas disaster.
In response to a review petition on October 3, 1991, the Supreme Court decided to set aside the quashing and termination of criminal proceedings and on November 27, 1991 the criminal case was resumed in the Bhopal court.