A Constitution Bench gave Solicitor General Tushar Mehta time till October 11 to get instructions from the Centre on whether it wants to “press” its curative petition seeking enhancement of compensation to the victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy, over and above the $470 million already paid by Union Carbide.
“The government will have to take a stand whether it is going to press the curative petition or not,” Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, heading the five-judge Bench, observed.
The victims, represented by advocate Karuna Nundy, said the court should hear them irrespective of the government’s decision. But the court said it would wait for the Centre to clarify its position about the curative petition.
“We will see whether you are required to be heard at all. If the government presses it (curative petition), maybe your task will be simpler,” Justice Kaul said. Senior advocate Sanjay Parikh, also for the survivors, said the intensity of the tragedy has only increased fivefold in the number of victims and extent of injuries and deaths over the years.
The Bench, at this, wondered whether the compensation could keep changing over time like that. “Can it be said something happened five years, 10 years later?” the court asked.
Justice Kaul said, “any system must provide for certainty. There cannot be perpetual uncertainty. There is no ideal situation for anything”. One of the lawyers, appearing for the respondent company, agreed that there should be a “finality to the litigation”. The curative petition was filed 19 years after the review petition was decided.
Nundy said exceptions are made for “very, very rare cases” as like the Bhopal gas tragedy. “Until the curative petition was filed by the government, you did not see the need to file any curative?” Justice Kaul asked the lawyer.
In its curative plea, the Centre has contended that the compensation, determined in 1989, was arrived at on assumptions of truth unrelated to realities. A five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court had in 2011 issued notice to the Union Carbide Corporation, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Chemicals Co., U.S.; Dow Chemicals ; McLeod Russel India, Kolkata, and Eveready Industries, Kolkata.
The Centre had sought a re-look of the May 4, 1989 and subsequent October 3, 1991 orders of the Supreme Court, contending that the 1989 settlement was seriously impaired.
The government has sought additional funds of over ₹7,400 crore from the pesticide company. The tragedy had unfolded in Bhopal (in the State of Madhya Pradesh) on the intervening night of December 2-3,1984 when the highly dangerous and toxic gas, Methyl Isocynate (MIC),escaped from the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL). It resulted in the death of 5,295 human beings, injuries to almost 5,68,292 persons besides loss of livestock and loss of property of almost 5,478 persons.
The court had dismissed a curative petition filed by the CBI in 2010 for enhancement of punishment. The agency had filed the curative petition to correct the Supreme Court’s “colossal failure of justice” in 1996 when it chose to dismiss the 1984 Bhopal Gas tragedy as a result of an act of negligence, and not culpable homicide, by former Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson and his Indian employees. Anderson died in 2014.
Dismissing the curative plea in 2011, the court had held that “no satisfactory explanation has been given to file such curative petitions after about 14 years from the 1996 judgment.”
The CBI had wanted the Supreme Court to “restore” the criminal charge of Section 304 Part II IPC (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) against the accused persons. It had approached the Supreme Court facing public outcry over a Bhopal court order that sentenced Union Carbide executives to two years’ imprisonment. Those convicted included former Union Carbide India chairman Keshub Mahindra.
Students were goaded into wearing hijab to school by PFI through social media, Karnataka tells SC
Karnataka in Supreme Court on September 20, 2022 said students were goaded into wearing hijab to school by the Popular Front of India (PFI) through social media messages.
Appearing before a Bench led by Justice Hemant Gupta, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said no student was insisting on hijab till 2022. Mehta said the agitation on hijab was part of a “larger conspiracy” orchestrated by the PFI to create social unrest.
Now, other students are insisting on wearing saffron shawls to classrooms. Both hijab and saffron shawls are prohibited. The State circular notifying educational institutions to stick to their prescribed uniforms was “religion neutral”.
Students wearing Hijab attend class at a college in Bengaluru. File | Photo Credit: Murali Kumar K.
“A movement was started in 2022 on social media by the PFI… Continuous messages were sent to start wearing hijab. This was not a spontaneous act by a few children but part of a larger conspiracy and children were acting as advised,” Mehta argued.
He said a chargesheet has been filed in the matter and he would place it on record.
The Bench pointed to an averment made by one of the student petitioners that she had been wearing hijab and was suddenly stopped by her school. Mehta said nobody had insisted on hijab or saffron shawls till 2021. In 2022, agitations have suddenly sprang up with children insisting on hijab or saffron shawls.
“If the government had not acted, it would have been a dereliction of duty. The circular was secular. It is not that one particular community was stopped from wearing hijab. All students had to adhere to their respective prescribed uniforms. The circular was religion neutral,” the law officer submitted.
He recalled how the High Court had registered its dismay over the agitations happening in the middle of the academic year. “We have the power to issue directions to the institutions to implement uniform… There was no disparity shown among students,” Mehta emphasised.
He said hijab at best could be categorised as a “permissible practice” and not an “essential religious practice” in Islam.
But Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia, on the Bench, said religious leaders and not courts were ideally placed to establish what made an essential religious practice. The Karnataka High Court could have avoided delving into the question in the hijab case. Judicial review ought to be confined to examining whether a religious practice violates public order, health or morality.
Senior advocate Dushyant Dave had wound up the petitioner side’s submissions by arguing that the High Court had erred in testing the legality of wearing hijab in public places on the touchstone of “essential religious practice”. Dave said it was the right of a Muslim woman to choose to cover her head.
Dawoodi Bohra community: SC decides to examine whether practice of excommunication can continue as ‘protected practice’
A Constitution Bench led by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul on September 20, 2022 decided to examine whether the practice of excommunication in the Dawoodi Bohra community can continue as a “protected practice” despite the coming into force of the Maharashtra Protection of People from Social Boycott (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act of 2016.
The reference to the five-judge Bench led by Justice Kaul was based on a 1962 judgment of another five-judge Bench in the Sardar Syedna Taher Saifuddin vs The State Of Bombay case. The 60-year-old verdict of the apex court had held that the religious faith and tenets of the Dawoodi Bohra community gave its religious heads the power of excommunication as part of their “management of religious affairs” under Article 26(b) of the Constitution. The 1962 judgment came on a challenge to Section 3 of the Bombay Prevention of Excommunication Act of 1949.
Dawoodi Bohra community members offering special namaz on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr at HUssaini Masjid, Malipura in BHopal. File | Photo Credit: A.M. Faruqui
The 2016 Act of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly had however identified 16 types of social ostracisation and made them illegal, punishing the perpetrators with imprisonment for upto three years. One among the 16 deals with the expulsion of a member of a community.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing in the case before Justice Kaul’s Bench on Tuesday, submitted that the matter concerns religious freedoms and should be further referred to the Sabarimala Bench. He said constitutional issues do not become infructuous.
However, senior advocate Fali Nariman countered that the questions posed in the case have become “moot” with the enforcement of the 2016 law, which has repealed the 1949 Act. Fali Nariman appeared for the Bohra community.
“The Act (2016) provides remedy to all victims of social boycott. A complaint can be lodged with the nearest Magistrate in case of apprehension of social boycott by a religious body,” Nariman argued.
He said the petition before the Constitution Bench now was entirely linked to the 1949 Act, which had become extinct with the coming of the 2016 law. “If any member of a community is subject to ostracisation, please file a complaint. Excommunication is not legally feasible now. The current Act deals with several kinds of social boycott, it explicitly covers expulsion of a member of a community… What else is there?” Nariman said.
Senior advocate Siddharth Bhatnagar, for the petitioners, however said that a “general law” on social boycott may not protect the Bohra community members facing excommunication. He said the 1962 judgment protects excommunication in the community as a “protected practice” of their religion under Article 26(b) of the Constitution.
“We have challenged the practice itself,” he submitted. “They (religious heads of the Dawoodi Bohra community) themselves have to say excommunication is bad, which they will never say… Will they say expressly that they will not seek protection under the Sardar Syedna Taher Saifuddin judgment of 1962?,” Aggarwal asked in court.
“He wants you to go a step ahead and say that you will not endeavour to seek protection,” Justice Kaul addressed Nariman. Aggarwal interposed to point out that the 2016 Act was a Maharashtra law. He said the “practice may not be confined to Maharashtra”.
Scindia says will look into whether Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann was deplaned for being ‘drunk’; AAP dismisses allegations
Union Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on September 20 said he will look into the allegations that Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann was deplaned from a Delhi-bound flight at the Frankfurt airport as he was “drunk”. The Minister asserted that it was important to verify the facts.
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief Sukhbir Singh Badal on September 19 alleged that Mann was deplaned from a Lufthansa flight at the Frankfurt airport because he was in an inebriated state. Congress leader Partap Singh Bajwa sought an inquiry into the matter and shot off a letter to Scindia.
“This was an incident on international soil. We will have to make sure that we verify the facts. It is up to Lufthansa airline to provide the data. Based on the request that has been sent to me, I will certainly look into it,” Scindia told reporters on the sidelines of an event. Mann returned from his eight-day trip from Germany on September 19 where he had gone to attract investments.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday defended Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann amid allegations that he was deplaned from a Delhi-bound flight at the Frankfurt airport as he was “drunk”.
Speaking to reporters in Vadodara in poll-bound Gujarat, Kejriwal said the Opposition is slinging mud at Mann and spreading lies as they cannot find a fault in his work. “What Mann Saheb had done in the last six months, no government in Punjab had done in the last 75 years. After 75 years, Punjab has got a ‘kattar’ honest and hard-working chief minister,” Kejriwal said. He said the Opposition is indulged in mudslinging as it has failed to pick fault in Mann’s work.
“All this is a lie, all nonsense. The Opposition is trying to stop Mann but people are watching. They are happy with his work,” Kejriwal said.
SC notice to Centre on plea alleging shortage of anti-HIV drugs
The Supreme Court has sought response from the Centre and others on a plea alleging shortage of anti-retroviral drugs for treating HIV patients in the country. A bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Hima Kohli issued notice to the Ministry of Health, National AIDS Control Organisation and others on a plea filed by an NGO.
“The petitioners have submitted that there are shortages in the procurement of ART drugs in the country and the tender for 2021-22, which was due in August 2021, was issued in December 2021 and eventually failed. Issue notice, returnable in two weeks,” the bench said.
Anti-retroviral therapy (ART) is treatment of people infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) using anti-HIV drugs. The top court was hearing a plea filed by NGO Indian Network for People living with HIV/AIDS alleging shortage of antiretroviral drugs in the country.
The plea contended that non-availability of drugs at the Anti-Retro Viral Therapy Centres of the National AIDS Control Organisation results in hampering ARV treatment of the people living with HIV/AIDS.
Putin blasts U.S. attempts to preserve global domination
Russian President Vladimir Putin on September 20 blasted what he described as U.S. efforts to preserve its global domination and ordered officials to boost weapons production amid the fighting in Ukraine.
Speaking while receiving credentials from foreign ambassadors to Moscow, Putin said, “The objective development toward a multipolar world faces resistance of those who try to preserve their hegemony in global affairs and control everything — Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa.”
He added, “The hegemon has succeeded in doing so for quite a long time, but it can’t go on forever... regardless of the developments in Ukraine.”
Putin has repeatedly cast his decision to send troops into Ukraine as a response to alleged Western encroachment on Russia’s vital security interests. The Russian leader described Western sanctions against Russia over its action in Ukraine as part of efforts by the U.S. and its allies to strengthen their positions, but charged that they have backfired against their organisers and also hurt poor countries.
“As for Russia, we won’t deviate from our sovereign course,” Putin said. Speaking later during a separate meeting on military industries, he said Russian weapons have shown high efficiency during the fighting in Ukraine and told officials to quickly increase output of military industries.
“Our equipment efficiently confronts Western types of weapons,” Putin said. “Practically all of NATO weapons stockpiles have been brought to support the current regime in Kyiv.”
Putin added that Russia should study Western weapons to improve its own arsenals.
“We can and must learn about these arsenals, everything they have, everything they use against us to qualitatively increase our potential and improve our equipment, our weapons where we need to do it,” he noted.
Putin said he has ordered to boost allocations for new weapons, offer more loans to military industries and approve additional payments to their workers to increase weapons output.
“Structures of the military-industrial complex must deliver the required weapons and equipment in the shortest time possible,” Putin said.
In Brief:
Valery Polyakov, the Soviet cosmonaut who set the record for the longest single stay in space, has died at age 80, Russia’s space agency announced Monday. Polyakov’s record of 437 days in space began on January 8, 1994, when he and two others blasted off to the Soviet space station Mir. While aboard Mir, he orbited the Earth more than 7,000 times, before returning March 22, 1995. Polyakov had trained as a physician and wanted to demonstrate that the human body could endure extended periods in space. Polyakov previously had spent 288 days in space on a mission in 1988-89.
Ride-hailing company Uber Technologies has asked its drivers in India to ensure backseat seatbelts in their vehicles are accessible to passengers and they work, days after a local business tycoon died in a crash involving his private car. “To avoid any fines or complaints by riders, please ensure the seatbelts on the back seats are accessible and functional,” Uber said in an advisory to its drivers on Tuesday which was seen by Reuters. A source with direct knowledge also said Uber was conducting checks at airports to ensure its drivers were complying with seatbelt norms.
Evening Wrap will return tomorrow.
