ABSTRACT

Once again, we woke up to the news of yet another gas tragedy that took place at the LG Polymers plant at Gopalapatnam on the outskirts of Vishakhapatnam in the early hours of 7^th of May 2020. Since the Bhopal gas tragedy, India has witnessed more than 10 chemical industrial disaster from which the recent one is Vizag gas leak. While still being haunted by the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy, this incident affected the nearby villages and areas within three kilometres radius. A 2017 study by the British Safety Council tells us an even blurrier picture: 48,000 workers die of occupational accidents per year in India, of which 24% are from the construction industry and since then the percentage is increasing day by day. This incident once again raises the question regarding the present laws being insufficient, inadequate licensing policies, state negligence, faulty industrial plans, the responsibility of multinational corporations for its hazardous acts, and its compensation. For far too long, India has been very lax about the safety norms. Neither the public nor the governments have determined the accountability on their watch. The message it sends out to the worker’s community is not pleasing This incident once again raises the question regarding the present laws being insufficient, inadequate licensing policies, state negligence, faulty industrial plans, the responsibility of multinational corporations for its hazardous acts, and its compensation. This paper will discuss various aspects from which India still suffers. The legal, public policy, and ethical aspects will be touched upon. The paper concludes with recommendations towards public policy both nationally and internationally. The need of the hour is that we reflect on the past tragedies, learn from past mistakes, and take appropriate measures.

1. INTRODUCTION

India set up on a journey of industrialization and globalization and henceforth this led to a phenomenal increase in the industries all over the country. In today’s world, chemicals play a very important role in human lives and have greatly contributed to our daily routine, directly or indirectly. However, along with industrialization comes the risk of the occurrence of industrial disaster. Industrial disasters are highly traumatic for the industrial plant, employees, residents of the nearby settlements, and the surrounding community. In the past few decades, many causalities have been seen and they also impact the livestock, flora, and fauna and environment.

The situation has made more vulnerable by the operations of the industrial plant which are poorly maintained and not accustomed to handling extreme situations. There are major concerns linked with these industrial plants especially when it comes to manufacturing, storage, movement of hazardous chemicals, and waste management. Residents are the most vulnerable ones if they are not aware of the possible dangers and have no escape plan worked out. Industrial fires may reach high temperatures affecting large areas and rather a great concern ecological and environmental imbalance. Industries ask for a great level of care at all the stages of production, manufacturing, processing, package, storage, use, and disposal. The numerous cases of release of hazardous substances in air or water travelled and long way made the area uninhabitable for humans and livestock. Such disasters or accidents are significant in terms of injuries, pain, suffering, loss of lives, damage of property, and environment. Even after witnessing one of the greatest catastrophes, the Bhopal gas tragedy is also known as ‘Hiroshima of Chemical Industry’, many more accidents are reported over the years.

2. BHOPAL GAS TRAGEDY

• (Government Callousness and Corporate Power)                           

“The gas leakage from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, in 1984 is the largest industrial chemical accident to have ever occurred in the world. Over 500,000 people were exposed to poisonous gases, resulting in between 3,000 and 10,000 people dying within the first weeks of the accident and between 100,000 and 200,000 being left with possible permanent injuries. Due to its magnitude, the catastrophe remains one of chemistry’s most important ethical cases – the lessons of which should never be forgotten.” Bhopal, the capital of M.P also known as the breadbasket of India is a lush green agricultural state. Union Carbide saw Madhya Pradesh as a potential market for Sevin and Madhya Pradesh saw it as a catalyst for development and a

factory was set up in the late 1960s. The Company systematically marketed itself in India as a harbinger of progress and prosperity.¹

After a decade-old colonial rule came to an end government had to cope with the growing population, India had to engineer ways to increase production. Threatened by famine India started a new journey, the Journey of ‘green revolution’. After independence, the Indian government took the route of foreign investment as a way to industrial and economic development. Therefore, government-provided subsidiaries to foreign companies to set up their plant in India. One such company was US-owned Union Carbide Corporation (UCC). The company set up its pesticide plant in Bhopal in the year 1969 a city located on a key railroad junction in the middle of the country with a nearby lake that acted as a source of freshwater. Methyl isocyanate (MIC) was used as an intermediate in the production of carbamate pesticides (brandmark Sevin). To start with, MIC was imported from the US, but later a new plant for producing MIC was planned. In 1980, the Bhopal plant started to manufacture MIC, applying knowledge and designs supplied from the parental company based in the USA. Inferior technology was used in the plant which could have been avoided “had proven technology been used throughout”². “Despite some objections were raised the highly unstable MIC was stored in large tanks.”³

But the green revolution turned out to be a big failure and did not yield the results it promised. As a result of this small farmers who were uprooted from their small farms had to suffer the most. This fiasco led to the peasant population migrating to cities like Bhopal and started settling there as illegal squatters without any document of citizenship. The government tolerated them as potential vote banks and labour pools but they were not given state services like water, sewage system, etc.

UCC set up their factory in the Kali parade outside Old Bhopal. Earlier it was only formulating but later it decided to produce the chemicals it fell in violation of the municipal zoning regulation as it was too close to residential area and railways. When the municipal administers rose the issue and asked UCC to relocate he was mysteriously transferred from his post and this issue was never raised again.

Meanwhile, the slums were continuously increasing. It is important to note that as much as the “safety of the plant was the responsibility of its operators; the safety of the city was the responsibility of the government”⁴. And at various points government ignored its duties- from safety standing to the restrictions on zones. Also in a report by Amnesty International on the disaster, they said that they were “unable to find evidence that the central or state government took adequate steps to assess the risk to local communities or the environment, or to press Union Carbide to review safety mechanisms.”⁵ Rather, the government saw the illegal residents as potential vote banks and took no action against them and never informed them about the risk they are being exposed to.

• ​One Sunday night in Bhopal                                                              

The plant was a failure in the Indian market. It also got a condemning report from the audit team, the U.S. After this it had shut down its production by the middle of 1984. And while it was shut none of its safety measures were working, “including the refrigeration for the MIC, which must be kept below 0 degree Celsius”⁶. All this was done to save the extra cost. On the night of 3rd December, when the city was sleeping, 40-ton gas leaked from a tank forming a thick cloud over the ghettos nearest to the industrial facility, dispersed gradually over Old Bhopal, lastly started to scatter over the lake toward New Bhopal. Indian market couldn’t proceed just as it was trusted. Thus, the horrible event of 3rd December crippled the lives of many.⁷

Failure in Representing its Citizens

After the disaster, American lawyers gathered in the city of Bhopal and thereafter took victims’ only papers and also hired local thugs to persuade the clients. To prohibit these unfair acts the government had to intervene. The government took notice of the unfair means resorted by the lawyers and to protect the interests of the people it passed the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster Act, 1985. In consonance of this act, the government became the sole representative and the negotiating party for all the gas victims in parens patriae. In the legal language, the victims were labelled as ‘judicially incompetent’ as they did not have the power to represent themselves, and also there was no provision in the act for the victims to communicate with the victims. They were robbed of the legal right to represent themselves.

Not only this even after decades the government has failed in protecting the legal rights of the gas victims. “According to official figures in all 5,97,306 claims have been registered with the directorate of claims, Madhya Pradesh government. Of these 4,06,095 claims have been filed by the residents of the 36 wards and this figure is 22 percent less than the official resident population of these wards in 1984. The single largest omission is the non-registration of claims of over 1,50,000 gas affected persons who were less than 18 years age at the time of registration of claims. Such a situation has been brought about primarily due to the arbitrary decision of the government officials in charge of claim registration to disallow persons under 18 to register their claims. This illegal practice was carried out under the erroneous notion that since minors cannot be owners of the property, they cannot be entitled to compensation amounts.”

The Government of India has done little to inhibit MNCs from negating the liabilities in the future. Rather it has used the guise of benevolent intentions to gain political gains. The reports on the invisibilisation of the survivors and the failure of ‘Operation Faith’ is the ground root reality.

3. VIZAG GAS LEAK- AN AVOIDABLE INCIDENT

Even after Bhopal gas leak lessons have not been learned. On the night of 7th May 2020 people were awoken by a pungent smell causing problems in inhaling and watering eyes. People ran for life in the village of Gopalapatnam on the outskirts of Vishakhapatnam leaving all their belongings behind. This all happened when styrene gas leaked from the nearby chemical plant named LG polymers. As a result of this 13 people have been reported dead and more than 1000 people have landed in the hospital. Inhaling the toxic gas, which is found in liquid form is an organic compound but vaporizes when the temperature rises, many people and animals die and it has long term effects on the health and also on the flora and fauna of the city. This incident took place when the plant was all set to start its operation after 43 days due to COVID-19.

“The preliminary findings of the Andhra Pradesh Forensic Science Laboratory have revealed that the accident was due to human error as the temperature of the storage tank containing styrene was not maintained below 20 degrees Celsius.”⁸

Vizag incident drew the attention of the health experts and they started comparing the Vizag incident to the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. “Both the Bhopal gas tragedy and the Visakhapatnam (Vizag) gas leak occurred during the night and also when the plants were about to restart after some time gap. We need to learn a lot of things from such tragedies,” said Professor V. Ramana Dhara of the Indian Institute of Public Health, Hyderabad.⁹

One of the members of the International Medical Commission on Bhopal said that as of now not much can be said about the long-term effects of the gas leak as it requires detailed and prolonged study. One lawyer working with the National Green Tribunal (NGT), told Mongabay-India that “Hazardous industries are vulnerable to mishaps and thus they need to follow standard safety procedures and do safety audits whenever they resume operations after a gap”.¹⁰

• ​Proper Protocol was ignored                                                            

“At various instances, the South Korean subsidiary said that it followed all the international standards on safety. But after the accident questions were raised over the lack of compliance to the Standard Operating Protocol (SOP), that is, an onsite and offsite emergency plans to control the after-effects of the accident.”¹¹

“Not only this but according to the documents submitted by the company to the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate change (MoEFCC), the plant was operating without a valid environment clearance under the provisions of Environment Impact Assessment notification 2006. The plant was only given consent for the establishment and operation from the Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board (APPCB).”

“This was not the first such incident in Vizag. We have already seen 30-40 accidents in the past few years where people have lost their lives or suffered injuries. But as no promoter was strictly punished or erring government officials booked, the industrial accidents continue unabated,” EAS Sarma, an environmentalist from Vizag, told Mongabay-India.¹²

This was expected to be taken up by a group of expert panels of MoEFCC on May 18, 2020. The decision of the panel has not been made public yet. Environmentalist criticized the APPCB for approving setting a plant in the area which was habited by thousands of people.

Vishakhapatnam has witnessed the growth of the number of industries due to the proximity of the mining region, railway facilities. This is not the first time that such a mishap was witnessed by the city. “According to data provided by the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment to the Lok Sabha in parliament on March 16 earlier this year, Andhra Pradesh has seen a total of 383 deaths due to industrial mishaps in five years (till 2017) and a total of 1,047 injuries.”¹³ Reports also suggest that Vizag alone had witnessed the death of 54 people due to industrial accidents. In a statement by the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy industries are being held responsible for the mishaps but the lack of stringent actions being taken by the administration encourages the erring industries to set up or operate without following the rules.

At present we have several laws at hand to ensure the safety standards but most of the industries do not comply with these due to lack of physical verification. These industries make big promises and statements but these are mere words on a piece of paper without any compliance. The environment ministry has several regional offices to verify the compliance of law but the problem is that one regional office is catering to 5-6 states and thereby making it impossible to verify every industry physically. So, it is important to reduce the workload of these offices for their effective working.

It’s high time that environmental laws are revisited and strengthened. There is a strict need for us to mandatory marking the area i.e. Strictly saying no to industries in the rural area as a preventive measure to avoid these mishaps in the future.

4. ABSOLUTE V/S STRICT LIABILITY

The strict liability was evolved in the case of Ryland vs. Fletcher¹⁴ in England. But in India it further evolved with some modification by the apex court called the “No-Fault liability” or “Absolute liability” in the two landmark cases named “M C Mehta vs UOI¹⁵ & Union Carbide Vs. UOI¹⁶. With the arrival of Absolute liability, strict liability has become obsolete due to the following reasons:

 4.1 Indian judiciary’s View.                                                                   

By analysing the need to modify the 19^thcentury rule of strict liability the apex court in M.C Mehta case stated that “moreover the principle so established in Ryland v. Fletcher¹⁷ of strict liability cannot be used in the modern world, as the very principle was evolved in the 19^th century, and in the period when industrial revolution as just began, this two-century-old principle of tortuous liability cannot be taken as it is in the modern world without modifications.¹⁸

• High Industrial Growth: For a developing country like India, this rule is an old one. The principle of strict liability evaluates when there was very law industrial growth. So, this rule definitely cannot be found in the Indian Perspective.
• Obsolete: The rule was propounded in the 19^th century almost 150 years ago when the conditions were altogether different socially and economically. There is an urgent need for a suitable rule in the present context.

Recently, on the unfortunate gas tragedy in Vizag, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has taken Suo Moto cognizance of the case & directed the application of Strict Liability principle on the company due to which the legal aspect, in this case, has become a blur. The case also questions the degree of compliance by the industries to the legislation in this regard. For instance, Rule 13 of the Manufacture, Storage and Import of Hazardous Chemical Rules, 1989 requires the industries to keep “up-to-date an on-site emergency plan“¹⁹. It requires “that every person on the site who is affected by the plan is informed of its relevant provisions.“²⁰ The occupier also must ensure “that a mock drill of the on-site emergency plan is conducted every six months.“²¹ However, in this tragedy, there were no such precautions taken on the part of the industry.

The apex court in M.C Mehta v. Union of India²² held that” “We are of the view that an enterprise, which is engaged in the hazardous or inherently dangerous industry which poses a potential threat to the health and safety of the persons working in the factory and residing in the surrounding areas owes an Absolute and non-delegable duty to the community to ensure that no harm results to anyone on account of hazardous or inherently dangerous activity which

it has undertaken.”²³ The same rule was approved by the court in Charan Lal Sahu v. UOI24, Union of India v. Prabhakaran Vijay Kumar25, Bhopal gas leak case26 & Indian Council for Enviro legal action27.

4.2 The Scope of Absolute Liability

The new concept of absolute liability is much wider than the old one in all terms. These are:

• This rule does not entertain any exceptions meaning thereby the defendant cannot put forth any excuse of reasonable care etc.
• Now cover not only the occupier of the land but also non-occupier of the land²⁸
• This rule not only includes the public negligence but also personal injuries caused due to the fault of the neighbour.

To sum this up, the evolution of absolute liability ensures that the profit-oriented industries which carry on inherently dangerous activities do not escape their liability by using the exception clause provided in Strict liability. To put them under the umbrella of Strict Liability by the NGT opens up a convenient window for LG Polymers to escape the liability very easily. Moreover, in these cases, to impose a penalty on the defendant, the parent company always escape and gets ignored. This should be kept in mind that the parent company is equally liable and hence must be acknowledged for the same.

5. IS COMPENSATION ENOUGH?

The damage in these cases is often measured in terms of financial compensation but this section will deal with the aspects which are being ignored for a very long time when it comes to compensation. Financial compensation which alone cannot be sufficient and achieve the objective of non-occurrence in these events. Here are some areas which we can focus on this time:

Environmental Remediation

The main loophole in our system is the ignorance of this remediation which is the main solution. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights explained that to prevent harm, the removal of toxic chemical pollution produced needs to be curbed. Even after 30 years of the horrible industrial incident in the history of India the groundwater, soil of the Union Carbide chemical factory is still impure and contaminated which is evidencing the failure to achieve the objective of compensation. It is important to note here that despite the widespread resonance of the idea of environmental governance and the ostensibly visible success stories in locales in several regions of the world, this new paradigm is far from displacing conventional models of socio-economic development in the third world.²⁹ The serious public health concern is still in existence in Bhopal. Children with various disabilities like TB, Paralysis, Cancers, reproductive health, and impairment in mental and social development are stillborn in Bhopal. The compensation has still not been paid to the whole Bhopal and the same treatment should not be given to Vizag. The Vizag environmental remediation plan should come in existence making up to the loss of people in real form.

Compensation for Human Right’s Violation

The Bhopal gas tragedy was not only an environmental disaster but also a human rights disaster. In the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) it is stated that “Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life”³⁰ In this case, the right was completely snatched from the people living as the government ignored the plight of people living with contaminated water, improper medical facilities, etc. In the case, Virender Kumar v. State of Haryana³¹ the supreme court reiterated that under the right to life a lack of pure safe environment, water, air amounts to the violation of Article 21. The government of India in 1979, acceded to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Section 12 of ICESCR states that “The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health”³² which was overshadowed by the govt. The destruction of the environment at any point of time surely leads to the violation of human rights. Vizag incident is the reflection of the Bhopal’s case and mere financial compensation will not suffice unless and until we get done with this compensation as well.

Compensation for Breach of Duties

The makers of the constitution were aware beforehand that the existence of only rights will create a state of anarchy, lawlessness, and disorder that’s why they mentioned duties/liabilities in the sacred document to create a welfare state. Article 47 of the Constitution states that “the State shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among its primary duties.”³³ Now, the complete failure on the part of the government to fulfil its duty till today needs to be satisfactorily compensated. Article 12(2)(b) of the ICESCR requires India and all other states party to the covenant to look after “the improvement of all aspects of environmental and industrial hygiene”.³⁴ The payment of Rs. 10,000 to each victim in the household does not cover this aspect in the tragedy. Moreover, Article 48A of our Constitution provides that, “Protection and improvement of environment and safeguarding of forests and wildlife. —The State shall endeavour to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wildlife of the country.” In the case of Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra case35 the hon’ble supreme court held that the state must protect the environment and this responsibility shall also work in the form of fundamental duty under Article 51A. Also, M.C. Mehta v. State of Orissa³⁶ held that lack of sanitation which affects human life severely amounts to a violation of fundamental rights. Even in the case of M.C. Mehta v. UOI & Ors.³⁷ The apex court granted the right to live in the pollution-free environment under Art. 21 of the constitution. The horrible violation of duty by the topmost institution in the country is shameful and a violent blow to the spirit of our constitution.

6. GAPS AND CHALLENGES

Following are the vital gaps and major challenges need to be addressed for robust chemical disaster management in India: –

1. Chemical Industrial safety is a major concern in the unorganized sector, where the workers also deal with hazardous chemicals, but they are not aware of the risks posed by hazardous substances. Generally, in this sector, neither Factories Act nor any other rule or policy is applicable directly, because in most cases the strength of the workplace is shown less than ten.).

• Based on the central acts, the states have notified their own rules, which are yet to be dovetailed with subject to chemical accident prevention, preparedness, and mitigation. It’s a big challenge to bring out clarity on complex reporting structures, roles, and responsibilities of concerned stakeholders, including ministries, departments, industries, and NGOs.
• National and zonal/ regional level training institutions are struggling for the resources (adequate manpower and infrastructure). They need to be further upgraded; because right now there are about 1864 MAH units, and there are many more SMEs that exist in the country.
• There is no standard database and incentivization at the national, state, or district level, concerning all chemical entities and its expected Disaster Management (DM) requirements.
• There are very few chemical (industrial) units in our country, which have state of the art technology with adequate safety margins (including the backup systems and fail-safe material of construction). The advanced instrumentation like DCS (Distributed Control System) is also essentially required, which can directly take corrective actions without operating staff.
• In India, there are no heavy penalty provisions for defaulters of safety norms, usually, the defaulters get away with a meagre penalty amount, which does not encourage a safe environment. Generally, routine safety checks are also not carried out seriously by agencies.
• There are not enough budgets for safety provisions. Funds to be earmarked for the activities to strengthen chemical disaster management routed by respective departments/ entities.
• The enforcement of the Public Liability Insurance (PLI) Act is an issue, which needs to be strengthened at the earliest. There is a serious lack of awareness of the existence and provisions of this act amongst stakeholders. Further the statutory provisions to be strictly implemented, and immediate relief under the PLI Act, needs to be revisited.
• Chemical disaster issues are looked after by the Department of Labour at the state level, whereas at the Central level, the Ministry of Environment & Forest is the nodal ministry under various statutes and laws. Also, there are other role players as well, but looking at broadly we’ll find that it lacks multi-stakeholder involvement in policymaking, planning, and implementation.
• There is a big challenge in educating the stakeholders, and providing appropriate training and developing their capacities. There are no special courses for them. The standard “Material Safety Data Sheets” (MSDS) is generally quite complex, which needs to be further simplified in vernacular language. It seems to be a lack of coordination on knowledge exchange, training, capacity building part. CIDM is not integrated with educational programs and professional courses

7. Major Responsibilities of Stakeholders for Management of Chemical Industrial Disasters:

• Chemical units

As they are the major stakeholders that pose a major risk to the community at large should address:

• Adopting a technology which should include risk mapping and testing for all the critical equipment.
  • A well-detailed escape plan or emergency plan should be chalked out.
  • The community should rigorously engage in Corporate Social Responsibility.
• Government

As the government oversees the whole process it should address:

• Develop and institutionalize the plans and policies for the effective working of the companies.
  • Oversee the adherence of laws, acts, guidelines, and rules.
  • Ensure proper planning of the community plans. Not setting industries near rural areas or too close to the inhabited area.
  • Allocate resources to meet unprecedented circumstances or situations.
• NGO’S

They have a very important role to play in Chemical Industry Disaster Management and they should address:

• Bringing the safety issues in the frontline and preparing a coping mechanism.
  • Helping the chemical units and industries in chalking out the emergency plans.
  • Educating the people regarding the threats posed by these plants.
• Community

Being the most vulnerable ones, they should address the following issues-

• Should follow the safety measures laid down by the Chemical units and the NGO’S.
  • Inform any abnormal or unsafe observations to Police or NGO in the vicinity.

7. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

India’s handling of industrial disasters suffers from systemic apathy.³⁸ A serious need to ensure Standard operating procedures, public safety, and a comprehensive safety audit of all the industrial units has arisen. With the mishap in Vizag, it has been proven that the inadequacies in Bhopal gas tragedy have been repeated. We certainly do not need these tragedies to make us remind that this arena needs to be strengthened as soon as possible. The incident points towards a need for enforceable national & international standards for the safety of the environment. India is on the path of rapid industrialization while some of the steps being taken by the government regarding policy and behaviour of few industries but horrible threats to nature from poorly regulated industries remain. Widespread degradation of nature with an adverse effect on human health continues to occur all over India. Industrializing India needs to sort out its changing views not only on physical or moral – i.e. dharma and karma based- pollution but also of America’s re- definitions of moral and material pollution to consort with technological progress .³⁹

INDIA

• INEFFICIENT LAWS– India has been suffering from inadequate and efficient laws for a very long time leading to a horrible effect on the people and environment. India has a defect in legal mechanisms to protect itself from environmental disasters as there exists a multiplicity of enactments, the multiplicity of authorities ended up in a Daedalian system.
• INEFFACIOUS INSPECTORATE– A merciful condition is in existence concerning the factory inspectors being very inexperienced and incapable of handling the new technology. As the modern industrial process is highly complex, it is high time to conduct proper training sessions and mock drills so that these unfortunate incidents gradually vanish.
• SWINGEING PENAL PROVISIONS– The current provisions are too mild to stop them from committing negligence and claiming innocent lives. The definition of environmental crimes should be made stricter and rigid as in the coming times, the technology will certainly mushroom.
• ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION ACT, 1986– The act was laid down after the Bhopal gas tragedy happened. But it has certain loopholes into it which need to be amended. For Instance, Section 3⁴⁰ of EPA, 1986 provides that the Central government has the power to lay down the procedures and safety guidelines of the hazardous substances but it has not mentioned the list of hazardous substances which creates huge confusion.

INTERNATIONALLY

• STRENGTHENING LAWS– With a sharp rise in the number of cases of industrial tragedy, there is a need for strengthening the laws at national, regional, and international levels. Although Environment is a transnational subject but still there exists a responsibility on the part of the state.
• PREVENTIVE CONTROLS– There is a dire need to come up with Preventive Controls. Traditional law provides for liability only after the accident takes place. Preventive Controls will be followed by minimization in numbers of industrial disasters.
• INCREASING TECH– In this technological-savvy world where some sort of “Toxic- imperialism” has come into being instead of the previous Political- Imperialism because third world countries import obsolete technology which is hazardous and dangerous. The issue concerns the whole international community because its transfer is not controlled through legal options.
• Like the New International Economic Order (NIEO), efforts should be made to formalize the New International Information Order (NIIO).⁴¹ This will help in disclosing the required information in respect of the environmental consequences of the technological transfer.
• ENVIRONMENTAL AUTHORITY– The logical consequence of the implementation of principles 21 and 22 of the Stock holm Declaration, is the establishment of an international environmental court⁴² and unless it comes into being ICJ will have the compulsory jurisdiction regarding environmental issues. A separate chamber should be framed under the International Court of Justice only related to the Environmental issues.
• WORKER’S RIGHT– An international charter must be framed for the Worker’s rights such as the right to information, the right to adequate training, and right in decision making related to environmental issues. In these tragedies, the rights of the workers are often cornered and ignored completely. This is not only an environmental disaster but also a breach of the human rights disaster.

To sum this up, India has a potential of more than it is currently doing in this arena. India has done exceptionally well in the industrial arena over the years the die need is just to overcome the loopholes as abovementioned. NGT should keep this in mind while deciding the case that it is flooded with gross negligence and human errors. The Indian economy is growing at a tremendous rate but at significant cost in environmental health and public safety as large and small companies throughout the subcontinent continue to pollute.⁴³ The principle of absolute liability should take over. Let the justice prevails.

¹ S. Ravi Rajan Disaster, development and governance: Reflections on the lessons of Bhopal, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 369-394, (August 2002).

²Praful Bidwai, quoted in Claude Alvarez, Ten Years Later, in Chouhan et al., Bhopal, the Inside Story, p. 126.

³ Bridget Hanna, Bhopal: Unending Disaster, Enduring Resistance, Harv. Rev., April 2007.

⁴ Bridget Hanna, Bhopal: Unending Disaster, Enduring Resistance, Harv. Rev., April 2007.

⁵ Amnesty, Clouds, p. 5.

⁶ Bridget Hanna, Bhopal: Unending Disaster, Enduring Resistance, Harv. Rev., April 2007.

⁷Sukumar Murlidharan, Bhopal: Continuing Institutional crisis, Vol.39, no.49, pp 5196-5198, (Dec. 4-10, 2004)

⁸ Manish Kumar, ‘Years of neglect led to Vizag gas Tragedy’ Mongabay Series, 20 May, 2020

⁹ Id.

¹⁰ Id.

¹¹ Manish Kumar ‘Years of neglect led to Vizag gas Tragedy’ Mongabay Series, 20 May 2020.

¹² Manish Kumar ‘Years of neglect led to Vizag gas Tragedy’ Mongabay Series, 20 May 2020.

13 id

¹⁴ Rayland v. Fletcher, L.R. 1 Ex.256.1868 L.R. 3 HL 330 (1866).

¹⁵ M.C Mehta v. Union of India, SCR (1) 819 (1987).

¹⁶ Union Carbide v. UOI, (1) SCC 674 (1989).

¹⁷ Rayland v. Fletcher, L.R. 1 Ex.256.1868 L.R. 3 HL 330 (1866).

¹⁸ Bharat Parmar & Aayush Goyal, Absolute liability: the rules of strict liability in Indian perspective. Vol no. 11, No. 3 (May 2003)

¹⁹ Manufacture, Storage and Import of Hazardous Chemical Rules, 1989.

20 id

21 id

²² M.C Mehta v. Union of India, SCR (1) 819 (1987).

²³ Bharat Parmar & Aayush Goyal, Absolute Liability: The Rule of Strict Liability in Indian Perspective.

²⁴ Charan lal sahu v. Union of India, 1 SC 1480 (1990).

²⁵Union of India v. Prabhakaran Vijay Kumar 9 SCC 527 (2008).

²⁶ Union Carbide Corporation and Ors. v. Union of India, 1992 AIR 248 (1992).

²⁷ Indian Council for Enviro Legal Action v. Union of India And Ors., SCC (3) 212 (1996).

²⁸ J.N. Pandey, Law of Torts, (9^th Ed.), 2014.

²⁹ S. Ravi Rajan, Disaster, development and governance: Reflections on the lessons of Bhopal, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 369-394, (August 2002)

³⁰ Guneet Narula, what happened in Bhopal? (15 May, 2020, 4:51 pm), www.bhopal.net/march.

³¹Virender Kumar v. State of Haryana 2 SCC 577 (1995).

³²International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

³³ Indian Const. art. 47.

³⁴ Supra 32

³⁵ Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra Case, 1987 AIR 359 (1987).

³⁶ M.C. Mehta v. State of Orissa, AIR 1992 Ori. 225 (1992).

³⁷ M.C. Mehta v. UOI & Ors., 1987 AIR 1086 (1987)

³⁸       Vishakhapatnam      Gas      Leak:      What      is       styrene      gas      (9       May,      2020,         3:31 pm), https://www.insightsonindia.com/2020/05/09/insights-into-editorial-visakhapatnam-gas-leak-what-is-styrene-  gas/

³⁹ R.S. Khare, The Bhopal gas tragedy: Labyrinthine laws and unending politics, Jstor, Vol.6, No. 6, pp.12-14 (Dec., 1990).

⁴⁰ Environmental Protection Act, 1986. No. 29, Acts of Parliament. 1986 (India).

⁴¹ Shodhganga, Available at: https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/124981/7/07_chapter%201.pdf

⁴² See also Statement of the International Congress Concerning a More Efficient International Law on the Environment and Establishing an International ~ Court for the Environment within the United Nations System (1989).