M.C. Mehta v. Union of India

In one line

An enterprise that carries on a hazardous activity for profit owes an absolute and non delegable duty to the community, and if harm results it must pay, whatever care it took.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: in this case, reported at AIR 1987 SC 1086 and decided on 20 December 1986, the Supreme Court declined to apply the rule in Rylands v. Fletcher with its exceptions and laid down instead that an enterprise engaged in a hazardous or inherently dangerous industry which poses a potential threat to the health and safety of persons working in the factory and residing in the surrounding areas owes an absolute and non delegable duty to the community to ensure that no harm results, must conduct the activity with the highest standards of safety, and, if any harm results, is absolutely liable to compensate, it being no answer that it took all reasonable care and that the harm occurred without any negligence on its part; and that the measure of compensation must be correlated to the magnitude and capacity of the enterprise, so that the larger and more prosperous the enterprise, the greater the compensation.

Two judgments, one litigation

This is the first thing to get right and it is where MU's own printed citation leads a student astray.

M.C. Mehta's petition under article 32 against Shriram Foods and Fertilizer Industries produced more than one reported decision, and two of them matter.

17 February 1986, AIR 1987 SC 965. This is the citation MU prints. It is the judgment on whether the caustic chlorine plant, closed after the leak, should be allowed to restart and on what conditions. The Court, having appointed expert committees, allowed the plant to restart subject to a long list of safety conditions drawn from their reports, and directed continuing supervision. In the same judgment the Court recorded the need for environment courts staffed with people having technical knowledge, because judges cannot be expected to master the scientific material such disputes throw up.

20 December 1986, AIR 1987 SC 1086. This is the judgment on the principle of liability, and it is the one universally taught as M.C. Mehta. It is the source of absolute liability.

What to do in an examination. Answer on absolute liability, because that is what the question will be about, and say in one line that the citation printed is that of the earlier judgment in the same litigation on the restarting of the plant. A student who does that is right either way and shows they have read the case rather than a summary of it.

The facts

Facts. M.C. Mehta v. Union of India, AIR 1987 SC 1086. Delhi Cloth Mills Limited, a public limited company with its registered office in Delhi, ran an enterprise called Shriram Foods and Fertilizer Industries, which had several units manufacturing caustic soda, chlorine, hydrochloric acid, stable bleaching powder, superphosphate, vanaspati, soap, sulphuric acid, alum, anhydrous sodium sulphate, high test hypochlorite and active earth. The units were in a single complex of about seventy six acres at Kirti Nagar, Delhi, surrounded by thickly populated colonies including Punjabi Bagh, West Patel Nagar, Karampura, Ashok Vihar, Trinagar and Shastri Nagar, and within a radius of three kilometres there was a population of approximately two hundred thousand. The caustic chlorine plant had been commissioned in 1949 and employed about two hundred and sixty three people.