The National Green Tribunal’s order on Friday in the Visakhapatnam gas tragedy found LG Polymers prima facie liable under the 19th century English law principle of “strict liability”, which was made redundant in India by the Supreme Court in 1986. Lawyers say the term “absolute liability” should have been used instead.
Even though the NGT directed the company to deposit an initial amount of ₹50 crore and formed a fact-finding committee, its use of the term “strict liability” has been questioned. For, under the “strict liability principle”, a party is not liable and need not pay compensation if a hazardous substance escapes his premises by accident or by an “act of God’” among other circumstances.
Woefully inadequate
The Supreme Court, while deciding the Oleum gas leak case of Delhi, found strict liability woefully inadequate to protect citizens’ rights in an industrialised economy like India and replaced it with the ‘absolute liabil