BAYER INDIA LIMITED Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) AFTER Bhopal and Chernobyl, is it to be the turn of Thane for another man-made disaster of unprecedented dimensions? History is supposed to forewarn and it is said that we are required to learn from our mistakes of the past. What began with the industrial revolution and was politely referred to in economic terms as development has, over the decades and centuries, grown into the setting up of gigantic enterprises which cater to the life-style and requirements of progressing society. While, on the one hand, manufacturing processes necessarily involve the storage and use of products which in themselves can often be categorised as dangerous, many of the processes themselves are required to be conducted under systems of extreme safety. It was realised all the more after the Bhopal tragedy that even the manufacture of pesticides, which have their own use, could, in the event of an accident or leakage, kill a sizable portion of the population in the vicinity of such a plant. The accent in the last decade at least has been focussed more and more towards the preventive aspect which in the simplest of the terms envisages that the danger to health and human life should be minimised to the maximum extent. It is for this purpose that stringent regulations are required to be promulgated with regard to the transport, storage, handling and user of hazardous chemicals, gasses and processes. For obvious reasons, these cannot be completely isolated from towns, cities and areas of human habitation.

(2.) AS a starter, however, prudence and the rules of abundant caution indicate that such units and processes should, as far as possible, be located in places other than where people normally live. This apart, since in a country such as this one, where there are pressures of land and where the density of the population is relatively large, it is very necessary to prescribe and provide for a safety margin within which no residence or human habitation should be permitted. Undoubtedly, the first requirement is to ensure that the transport and process at all stages are conducted under conditions that ensure maximum safety and thereby avoid accidents, leakags, explosions and the like. Experience has unfortunately indicated that even in the best of the situations with far more sophisticated safety and alarm systems that accidents have still occured. The possibility of this happening in the Indian set-up is slightly higher. Incidents are plentiful even if one were to come down to the State of Maharashtra and the city of Bombay and its vicinity, where hazardous chemicals have caused havoc as a result of negligence or accident and the potential danger is what is to be regarded as the real threat.

(3.) WHERE human habitation is permitted in proximity of units dealing with hazardous chemicals and processes, there is an immediate two-fold danger; the first being the exposure to health hazards which would have its own long-term deadly effects and the second being the danger to life which is something irreplaceable. Both these aspects are crucial and are of equal concern and we do think that it is of fundamental necessity that the Planning Authorities, the Government and the Public bodies, who are entrusted with the task of deciding on the location of residential areas, must be alive to these very real and basic necessities at all times. These are the issues on which there can be no compromise, nor can there be any leniency.