BHOPAL GAS PEEDITH MAHILA UDYOG SANGATHAN & ORS. versus UNION OF INDIA & ORS.

Citation: [2012] 12 S.C.R. 947 · Decided: 09-08-2012 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: S.H. KAPADIA · Disposal: Transferred to High Court
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Judgment (excerpt)

. [2012] 12 S.C.R. 947 
BHOPAL GAS PEEDITH MAHILA UDYOG SANGATHAN & 
A 
ORS. 
v. 
UNION OF INDIA & ORS. 
(Writ Petition (C) No. 50 of 1998) 
AUGUST 09, 2012 
[S.H. KAPADIA, CJI., A.K . PATNAIK AND 
SWATANTER KUMAR, JJ.] 
B 
Constitution of India, 1950- Articles 21 and 32 - Bhopal C 
gas Leak Disaster - Public Interest Litigation - By victims of 
the disaster - Praying for free and proper medical assistance 
from the State and for direction to Indian Council of Medical 
Research (ICMR) to resume and conduct research studies 
which it had undertaken immediately after disaster and had D . 
subsequently abandoned - Court directed constitution of two 
expert Committees viz. 'Monitoring Committee' and the 
'Advisory Committee' - Court also directed creation of Bhopal 
Memorial Hospital and Research Centre (BMHRC) and 
Bhopal Memorial Hospital Trust (BMHT) for the purposes of E 
healthcare of gas victims - In order to ensure smooth running 
of BMHT, a corpus was created - As per direction of Union 
Government, ICMR established National Institute of Research 
in Environment Health, (NIREH) as a permanent research 
centre 
-
Monitoring 
Committee 
making 
certain 
F 
recommendations proposing that further power be vested in 
it for improving the quality of medical care to gas victims -
Management and corpus of BMHT transferred to Union 
Government - Thereafter certain Interlocutory applications 
were filed seeking certain directions and making certain 
suggestions - Held: In terms of Article 21, all the gas victims 
G 
are entitled to greater extent of multi-dimensional health care, 
as their sufferings are not attributable to them - In addition to 
the directions already issued by this Court, certain further 
947 
H 
948 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
(2012] 12 S.C.R. 
A directions issued in relation to better co-ordination between 
the functioning of the authorities, issuance of 'Health Booklets' 
and 'Smart Cards' to the gas victims, computerization of 
medical records of hospitals, taking over of corpus of BMHT, 
management of the Trust and certain matters where State 
B Government failed to effectively accept the recommendations 
of the Committees - There is no justification for expanding 
the scope of functioning of the Monitoring Committee or 
bringing the private hospitals/clinics within its jurisdiction - It 
is directed that all the matters covered under Se,?edule I to 
C NGT Act after coming into force of the Acflshall stand 
transferred and can be instituted only before Nat~nal Green 
Tribunal - Since the present case does not involve any 
complex or other environmental issues and pqmarily requires 
administrative supervision for proper execution of the. orders 
' 
D of the court, it is transferred to High Court instead of the 
Tribunal - Supervisory jurisdiction to be exercised by the High 
Court to better serve the ends of justice - National Green 
Tribunal Act, 2010 - ss.14, 29, 30, 38(5) and schedule I -
Environmental Law. 
E 
CIVIL ORIGINAL JURISDICTION : Writ Petition No. 50 of 
1998. 
Under Article 32 of the Constitution of India. 
WITH 
F I.A. Nos. 62-63 of 2011 
IN 
C.A. Nos. 3187-88 of 1988 
G 
Sanjay Parikh, Aagney Sail, Mamta Saxena, A.N. Singh, 
Bushra Parveen, Naveen R. Nath, Karuna Nundy, Anupam Lal 
Das for the Petitioners. 
H 
Mohan Parasaran, ASG, Vijay Hansaria, Raju 
Ramac~andran, S.W.A. Qadri, Rekha Pandey, Sunita Sharma, 
BHOPAL GAS PEEDITH MAHILA UDYOG SANGATHAN v. 949 
UNION OF INDIA 
M. Khairati, D.S. Mahra, Anil Katiyar, B. Krishna Prasad, C.D. 
A 
Singh, Sunny Choudhary, Abhimanyu, Ayusha Kumar, Madhu 
Sikri, Rishi S. Chandra Shekhar for the Respondents. 
The Order of the Court was delivered by 
SWATANTER KUMAR, J. 1. Unlike natural calamities 
B 
that are beyond human control, avoidable disasters resulting 
from human error/negligence prove more tragic and completely 
imbalance the inter-generational equity and cause irretrievable 
damage to the health and environment for generations to come. 
Such tragedy may occur from pure negligence, contributory 
C 
negligence or even failure to take necessary precautions in 
carrying on certain industrial activities. More often than not, the 
affected parties have to face avoidable damage and adversity 
that results from such disasters. The magnitude and extent of 
adverse impact on the financial soundness, social health and 
D 
upbringing of younger generation, including progenies, may 
have been beyond human expectations. In such situations and 
where
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