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Posted By K. Babu Rao
On November 24, 2003 at 3.25 pm a blast ripped through the fuse-wire manufacturing unit of Indian Detonators Limited (IDL), Hyderabad, India killing seven workers and injuring eight. While five died on the spot, two were declared dead at the Hospital. Later one more person died while under treatment taking the total of dead workers to eight (8).
The huge concrete structure of the Detonator Fuse (DF) wire manufacturing Unit-2 crumbled in the blast.
Today it is announced that a retired justice of the Andhra Pradesh State High Court is appointed to conduct an enquiry in to the accident. The announcement does not name any experts or institutions to assist the enquiry.
I have some doubts on the accident investigation proceedures and seek your inputs. I have read a few chemical accident investigation reports available on the Internet but never found any involvement of judges.
Are there any cases of judges investigating the accidents instead of professional experts? Is it right to appoint judges to conduct accident investigations?
K. Babu Rao
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Rank: Guest
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Posted By john o'meara
Hello K.
My commiserations on this tragedy.
To answer your question - yes, retired judges are commissioned to investigate significant industrial catastrophes (and other catstrophes such as financial collapses of companies or failures of government enterprises).
This seems to be a practice common to countries with a British inherited judicial system. Do Indian states initiate Royal Commissions?
These special Commission of Inquiry are not common. Most industrial accidents will be investigated by the state's regulatory body for the industry in question. When the event is highly "political" with significant public interest, the government might choose to set up a public inquiry.
An ex judge (or other senior person from a law background) will be chosen - not for techncal expertise, but for the ability to manage a complex investigatory process. He/she will be well supported by technical experts.
There will be many lawyers representing the different interested parties, and they will probably ask more questions than the ex judge. There will be witness statements, examination and cross-examination of witnesses and argument over many legal technicalities. Only a person highly skilled in these matters could manage the process.
Here's a few examples:-
. the Mt Erebus plane disaster (New Zealand, 1981, active judge)
. the Longford gas plant fire (Victoria, Australia, 1998; retired judge and an engineer as co-Commissioner)
. Piper Alpha gas rig fire (UK, 198?, Lord Cullen)
. numerous rail disasters (Lord Cullen again)
The judge will not do the technical investigation (although he/she will ask questions). That would be done by appropriate experts. But the judge will be responsible for the findings and recommendations. So he/she has to have great skill in assessing evidence.
The USA does things differently. The IDL incident would probably be investigated by the Chemical Safety Board.
J.
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