JUDICIARY, CORRUPTION AND THEATRE OF CRUELTY

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_spotlight-on-judges-who-ruled-in-favour-of-union-carbide_1394222

Anil Sharma / DNA                                                                                         Thursday, June 10, 2010 0:16 IST


New Delhi: There’s nothing unusual in Supreme Court (SC) judges landing high-profile assignments post retirement. So, when justices RS Pathak, AM Ahmadi and Ranganath Misra, who presided over courts that ruled in favour of Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), did well in life after their SC terms ended, no one noticed.

But now as India feels let down by a Bhopal court’s “light” sentences to ex-UCIL officials despite causing the world’s biggest manmade disaster that left over 15,000 dead, the verdicts delivered by these judges have returned to haunt the nation.

It was in the court presided over by then chief justice of India (CJI) Pathak that a settlement between Union Carbide Corporation (UCIL’s parent company) and the government was reached in 1989. The government had sought $3.3 billion, but got only $470 million. The settlement also removed the criminal liability in the case.

Within three months of his retirement, Pathak became a member of the International Criminal Court at The Hague. A five-judge bench headed by then CJI Ranganath Misra revived the criminal liability in 1991, but upheld the $470 million settlement. Misra is now a Congress MP and chairman of the commission that recommended reservation for Dalit Muslims and Christians.

A two-judge bench headed by then CJI Ahmadi reduced the charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder to causing death by negligence. Since retirement, Ahmadi has been presiding over Bhopal Memorial Hospital Trust that runs a 350-bed superspeciality hospital. The trust was set up by Union Carbide.

Rs600 crore has gone into the trust, but its accounts are not in the public domain. The trust deed mandates that an SC judge should be its chairman and Ahmadi has been at its helm since retirement.

BHOPAL GAS TRAGEDY: JUSTICE BURIED, Hindustan Times

http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/ArticleImage.aspx?article=08_06_2010_001_025&mode=1

Sri Lanka's war, a corporate war, says Arundhati Roy

CHENNAI: The war in Sri Lanka was not just a war of the Sri Lankans against the Tamil people, according to writer-activist Arundhati Roy. "That was a corporate war. All the large Indian companies are now heading to Sri Lanka to make more money," Roy said on Friday. "The political parties of Tamil Nadu were the only ones who could have stopped the genocide in Sri Lanka, but they chose to stand by silently. A similar thing is happening in central India where tribals are resisting the takeover of natural resources by corporates." 

Roy was speaking at a Convention on Operation Green Hunt and Genocidal attack on tribals by Indian State' organised in the city on Friday by the Federation Against Internal Repression. She said the resistance in central India was a fight against injustice and not a rebellion against the state as the government says it is. "The government is on the side of the corporates who want to take over the lands, forests, rivers, the traditional homes of the tribals. Operation Green Hunt follows the Bush doctrine of you are with us, or against us," she said. "Anyone who resists this corporate takeover, whether Gandhian, tribal or Maoist, is branded a terrorist," she said. 

Turning her attention to the environmental impact of development, she said there was no ecological way to mine bauxite. "You can never mine bauxite and then turn it into aluminium without destroying the ecological balance of the mountains. The tribals have lived in harmony with the forests and nature for centuries," she said. 

For over five years, some of the poorest, most marginalised people in the country have held off some of the world's largest multi-national corporations, she said, referring to tribals and adivasis across the country. "Every institution in this country has been corrupted but the spirit of our people remains strong," she said. 

The people's struggles were not against democracy but the ways in which the mechanisms of democracy function. "You're a Gandhian if you protest on the road, and a Maoist if you resist in the forest. How can someone without food go on a hunger strike? To do Gandhian resistance, you need an audience, and there is no audience in the forest," she said.

link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Lankan-war-was-corporate-one-says-Arundhati-Roy/articleshow/6013029.cms

read also: http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=31915