The perils of limited liability
The long-delayed and farcical verdict in the Bhopal gas tragedy case should make us all think twice about the pending Civil Liability for Nuclear Damages Bill, which seeks to limit the maximum compensation that a company setting up a nuclear power plant in India has to pay in case of a disaster. Curiously, even Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily, feels that “there is a need to take note of the lessons learnt [from the Bhopal case], while looking at [questions of] investigation, liability, compensation and punishment”. Mr Moily was responding to a question from a journalist about whether the government would heed the message of Bhopal while finalising the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill.
However, the legion of cheerleaders that want to improve ties with the USA at all costs think otherwise. They say that nuclear civil liability legislation is essential for India’s growth. Among them, regrettably, is India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The PM said as recently as two weeks ago that India needs to have an effective nuclear liability compensatory arrangement if it is to become a major nuclear energy power.
The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill, 2010, fixes the maximum amount of liability to be paid by the operator of the nuclear plant in case of a nuclear accident at Rs500 crore. That’s just a bit more, but still dangerously close to the amount the central government ‘negotiated’ with Union Carbide for the victims of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. Unfortunately, a potential nuclear disaster would affect more than 100 times the number of victims that the gas in Bhopal did. Radiation tends to travel much faster and farther than poison gas.
The problem is, the Indian government has already signed away our autonomy in this matter. The passage of the bill is a key requirement for the implementation of the landmark 2008 India-US nuclear deal!
In principle, any cap on civil liability for a nuclear disaster would fly in the face of the principle laid down by the Supreme Court that the ‘polluter pays’. However, it is difficult to divine the mind of the Supreme Court. Let us not lose sight of the fact that it was a Supreme Court bench led by the then Chief Justice A M Ahmedi that diluted the charges in the Bhopal Gas Disaster case from 304 IPC – Culpable Homicide not amounting to Murder – to Section 304 (a), causing death by negligence. One little alphabet changed everything… In a stroke, the Supreme Court’s verdict sentenced the gas affected people of Bhopal to be denied justice, by reducing the charges to a mockery; perpetrators of mass murder faced charges normally placed on negligent drivers.
Thankfully, Mr Moily now feels that laws relating to industrial disasters need to be “strengthened”, and that the law should “not open to interpretation”. But what does Mr Moily specifically propose to do about the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill, 2010?
Thankfully, both the Left parties and the Opposition BJP are in agreement that the present Bill simply will not do. Maybe proponents of the Bill should consider that in the last 25 years, not a single nuclear power station has been set up in the US, Britain or other advanced countries. Should India be rushing in where angels fear to tread?
NIT-picking
Thank God for Shantaram Naik. Goa’s Rajya Sabha MP, though known as the ‘Hero of Zero Hour’, keeps track of issues affecting Goa in Parliament. Shantaram has, in a letter faxed to Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal, demanded that the quota of seats allotted for the students from Goa for B-Tech Engineering should be retained, at least for three more years, till NIT Goa infrastructure takes shape.
The NIT can transform Goa. Unfortunately, 50 per cent of seats are reserved for Goa, Daman & Diu, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Lakshadweep. Shantaram wants that Goa be given 50 per cent of the seats, Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haweli linked with NIT-Gujarat, and Lakshadweep with NIT-Kerala. How many other politicians have even bothered to find out?
