DOW CHEMICAL INTERNATIONAL PVT LTD Vs. NITHYANANDAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE night of second December, 1984, was a black letter day for the Indian people when toxic gas emanated from the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) (owned by a multi national company viz. Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), with whom the plaintiff Company got merged itself during February, 2001) killed as many as 3000 people. Over 200,000 people got severe injuries. THE case for its tort liability filed against the said company though reached its finality, the victims of the holocaust are yet to be completely rehabilitated. Speaking about the Bhopal litigation, Dr. Upendra Baxi in his book in "Inconvenient Forum and Convenient Catastrophe : THE Bhopal case" (N. M. Tripathi Pvt. Ltd. , Bombay 1986), noted as follows:

(2.) JUSTICE V. R. Krishna Iyer made the following poignant comment in his book in "A Constitutional Miscellany" (Eastern Book Company, Lucknow, 1986):

(3.) THE relief in the suits were restricted to six defendants alone and the seventh defendant is arrayed as a defendant being the owner of the property, from which the plaintiff have got a lease for conducting their business. Though in the body of the plaint, the defendants were described with their addresses, there is no reference as to whether the defendants 2 to 6 were registered societies or body of individuals. In fact, the plaintiff/applicant is not sure about the nature of such organizations. Excepting for the first defendant, who is a named individual, the other defendants 2 to 6 have been shown in the names of those organizations. No application was taken out under Order 1 Rule 8 to sue them in a representative capacity.