The Bhopal Gas Tragedy

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The Settlement Contd...

Besides filing the suit, one of its prime responsibilities was to register the claims of each and every gas victim in Bhopal. Analysts felt that this job was never done, or rather, not with any seriousness for the next ten years. The government set up various inquiry commissions to investigate the causes of the disaster; they remained half-hearted initiatives at best. UCC, on the other hand, moved more quickly with its 'investigations': it announced by March 1985 that the disaster was due to 'an act of sabotage' by a Sikh terrorist. Then they shifted blame to a disgruntled worker.

In May 1986, Judge J.F. Keenan ruled that India and not the US was the appropriate forum for the Bhopal compensation litigation. In the first pre trial hearing in the consolidated Bhopal litigation in US federal courts, John F Keenan, asked UCC as 'a matter of fundamental human decency' to provide an interim relief payment of $5 - 10 million. UCC agreed to provide $5 million, provided a satisfactory plan of distribution and accounting of the funds was devised. For 8 months, the UCC and the GoI haggled over terms of reference and conditions for using the $5 million interim relief. Finally, in November 1985, the parties agreed to channel the money through the American Red Cross to the Indian Red Cross. Even after one year of the tragedy, no one-not even the official of the MP Government in charge of relief for the victims-had any idea what the Red Cross would do with the money. On December 17, 1987, a Bhopal District Court Judge passed an order directing UCC to pay Rs. 3.5 billion as interim relief.

UCC challenged this order in the MP high court (at Jabalpur) on the grounds that the trial judge was not authorised to pass the order under any provisions of the Indian Civil Penal Code. On April 4, Justice S. K. Seth of the High Court upheld the liability of UCC for the Bhopal disaster, but reduced the interim compensation to Rs 2.5 billion. UCC appealed to the Supreme Court of India against the High Court order saying "No court that we know of in India or elsewhere in the world has previously ordered interim compensation where there is no proof of damages or where liability is strongly contested."⁸

On February 14, 1989, the Supreme Court directed UCC to pay up US $ 470 million in "full and final settlement" of all claims, rights, and liabilities arising out of the disaster. The Supreme Court of India ruled that the $470 million settlement was "just, equitable and reasonable." UCC described the court's decision as fair and reasonable, and the company's stock soared in the London market. Analysts felt that the Bhopal Gas disaster, which left thousands of people dead and injured, was settled for a mere US $ 470 million-which worked out to around Rs. 10,000 per victim (if it was divided equally).

In the same year, a leading national daily⁹ stated that approximately US $ 40,000 was spent on the rehabilitation of every sea otter affected by the Alaska oil spill.¹⁰ Each sea otter was given rations of lobsters costing US $ 500 per day. Thus the life of an Indian citizen in Bhopal was clearly much cheaper than that of a sea otter in America.

In 1991, the Bhopal court summoned Warren Anderson to appear on a charge of 'homicide in a criminal case.' However, he did not turn up. On September 9, 1993, UCC sold its entire 50.9% stake in UCIL to the Calcutta based Mc Leod Russell India Ltd., a company of the B M Khaitan Group.

Till 2000, attempts to serve a summon on Warren Anderson by victims' organizations in the Federal Court on Southern district of New York have been unsuccessful. Kenneth McCallion, who was the lawyer for some of the victims and their family members, said a private investigator also hired to deliver the summons at Anderson's residences in Vero Beach, Florida, and Manhattan and Long Island in New York was unable to locate him. Asked if he believed Warren Anderson had gone into hiding to avoid the summons, McCallion said, "We are just surprised we have been unable to find him, a former CEO of a major corporation."

He observed, "And there is also a legal process which has been issued by the courts in India for him to appear in Bhopal district court to answer criminal charges and those attempts to serve him... have been unsuccessful as well." In 2001, in their book, It was five past midnight in Bhopal, Dominique Lapierre and Javier Moro wrote that bringing UCC to justice was unlikely because UCC had been sold out. In August 1999, Dow Chemical purchased UCC for US$ 9.3 billion.

Exhibits

Exhibit I: The Site for the Pesticide Factory

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8] An independent investigation carried out by Arther D. Little, Inc, on behalf of UCC, showed that the Bhopal incident was caused by a disgruntled employee who introduced a large volume of water by connecting a water hose directly to the tank.
9] The Times of India.
10] Exxon was involved in a major disaster in 1989, when one its tankers met with an accident and spilled 11 million gallons of oil in Prince William Sound in Alaska. The oil tanks of the Exxon Valdez were ruptured in a collision off the coast of Alaska.