Rewriting an industrial hazards law that followed the Bhopal gas leak

While it is easier now to sue a firm for adopting harmful manufacturing processes, successive govts have dragged their feet on goading companies to take out adequate insurance

The horrendous toll of the Bhopal gas tragedy helped India draw up a set of far-sighted social welfare legislations that also wrote down the extent to which the public is entitled to compensation in the event of an industrial accident. But then, almost everyone forgot those pieces of law.

A stock-taking exercise, conducted in March 2020 by Debadityo Sinha for Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, found an insurance pool set up under the Public Liability Insurance Act, of 1991 (PLI Act) to finance citizens who sue companies for injury or death caused by hazardous substances used by an industrial unit,