A five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved its verdict on Centre’s curative petition for review of the top court’s 1996 verdict diluting the charges against Union Carbide India Ltd top brass, including its chairman Keshub Mahindra, resulting in their getting away with lighter punishment of two years last year.
The bench, headed by Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia and comprising Justices Altamas Kabir, R.V. Raveendran, B. Sudershan Reddy and Aftab Alam, reserved its verdict only on the first curative petition seeking restoration of the charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304-Part-II of IPC against the UCIL officials, which carries maximum punishment of 10 years’ jail term.
A two-judge bench, headed by former CJI A.M. Ahamadi had converted the charge of 304-Part-II of IPC section into 304-A, which deals with the offence of causing death due to negligence and carries the maximum punishment of only two years. Justice Ahmadi’s bench had passed the verdict, when he was not yet appointed as the CJI.
The Centre filed the curative petition after a Bhopal court had convicted Mahindra and six other officials of UCIL for causing death due to negligence and awarded each of them two years’ sentence last year.
The verdict drew all-round criticism forcing the government to file the curative petition on both counts, criminal aspect and enhancing of the compensation to the victims, on the ground that when the amount of $470 million was approved by the top court in 1989, the death figure was around 1,500, which in subsequent years rose to more than 5,000 and five lakh people were accounted for permanent ailments and injuries.