One of the reasons for the burdensome 30 million cases pending in Indian courts is that the country has the longest Constitution and the largest number of laws. It is now the government which is the leading litigant. If the people gain more legal literacy, and become aware of all the welfare laws, the situation would be vastly different. Add to that the uncodified rights, which go by the name torts, the judiciary would need the help of artificial intelligence to stay relevant.
Some of the celebrated cases in torts are the Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal, followed by the Shriram Chemicals leak and the Uphaar fire in Delhi. Two judgments delivered by the Supreme Court in the past few weeks took the law of torts further. The first case was moved by a farmer whose plantation was destroyed by flood waters released from a dam. The second dealt with compensation for those who lost lives while riding trains on the roof.
Vohra Rajakbhai sued the Gujarat government because his berry plantation was ruined when the authorities released water from the Mazum dam. The government argued that due to heavy rains, surplus water had to be released and the bounteous monsoon was an Act of God over which it had no control. The farmer countered that the water level should have been kept at a safe level and the authorities were negligent.
The trial court and the high court accepted the Act of God excuse, but the Supreme Court reversed it, invoking the 1868 English ruling in Rylands vs Fletcher. According to it, a person who keeps anything likely to cause mischief if it escapes must keep it at his peril. He is answerable for all consequential damage if it escapes. The Supreme Court thus upheld the contention of the farmer. It said that with the advance of science, it is possible to predict rains and the defence of Act of God would not hold water.
The major advance made by this judgment was with regard to the quantum of compensation. The farmer had not produced any figures to justify his demand of Rs 20 lakh. Nevertheless, the court stated that once his suffering and loss stood proved, “the wrong-doer must suffer from the impossibility of accurately ascertaining the amount of damages.” Exercising its extraordinary power under Article 142 of the Constitution, it awarded Rs 5 lakh to the farmer.
The second case, Anil Kumar Gupta vs Union of India, arose when more than 200,000 youth from 11 states converged in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, competing for 416 Class IV posts in ITBP paramilitary force. The chaos prompted the authorities to call off the recruitment, which led to unruly scenes and lathi-charge. Hundreds of youth fled by train and 20 of them sitting on the rooftop were crushed and many injured when the speeding train crossed a railway over-bridge.
An inquiry commission exonerated the railway administration for the mishap and not even ex-gratia compensation was paid to the victims and their families. The Supreme Court did not agree with the report or the conduct of the railway. The court awarded Rs 5 lakh for the deaths and Rs 1.5 lakh for the injured. It held that the railway was negligent as it should have known the consequences of allowing trains to run at 75 kmph with crowds on rooftop.
These judgments cited some earlier instances though they are few and far between. In some of the earlier cases, the governments had invoked the colonial theory of sovereign immunity, asserting that they cannot be sued, like the Queen of England. Mercifully, the authorities have dropped that defence in recent times, faced with continuous rejection by the courts.
Still, the negligence of civic authorities largely goes unchallenged. People fatally falling into drains due to poor maintenance of pavements, loose electrical wires causing electrocution and children falling into tube wells are common and they are forgotten with a minister announcing an ex-gratia, which might not even reach the victims. It is said that in the US, the compensation for a child breaking its leg on an ill-maintained playground in school could see him/her through college. Here, life is weighed in miserly scales.
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