Amid outrage over Bhopal gas verdict, Union Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid today said emotions should not be mixed with law and stressed the need for enacting a special legislation to deal with such disasters.
“We must not mix emotions with law”, Mr. Khurshid told PTI here, adding, “Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily has given some indication that he is unhappy with the law as it exists and he would want to take a fresh look at it.”
“We (Corporate Affairs department) will wait and if he (Moily) wants any inputs, we will provide those inputs”, he said.
“I think what is missing is special law for disasters of this kind (Bhopal gas tragedy),” he added.
Mr. Khurshid said it has become quite apparent that ordinary criminal law is inadequate to deal with such disasters. “We must also keep in mind that civil liability and criminal liability are two different things. We should keep those two separate”, he said.
From the view point of Corporate Affairs Ministry, Mr. Khurshid said responsibility for financial disaster and responsibility for physical disaster are in a sense common.
“You destroy life in one case (financial disaster where one loses savings of a lifetime) and you kill people in another case (physical disaster)”, he said.
“What we are looking at is to what extent you can make people liable in civil liability,” Mr. Khurshid said, adding, insurance law has to be developed to deal with such disasters because one cannot do anything without adequate insurance cover.
Mr. Moily had dubbed the Bhopal gas verdict as an example of “justice buried” and said there was need for fast—tracking such cases and ensuring proper investigation.
