LAWSUITS IN INDIA.

Incidents such as the recent Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) barge disaster underline the absence of effective class action suits/lawsuits in India.
71 people were killed after Cyclone Tauktae damaged ONGC’s barge vessels off Bombay High.
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited
It is a Maharatna Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) of the Government of India.
It was set up in 1995 and is under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
It is the largest crude oil and natural gas company in India, contributing around 70% to Indian domestic production.

Important points:

It is a case brought to court by a group representing a larger set of people, often in thousands, who have suffered the same loss. Such a group forms a class.
It derives from representative litigation, to ensure justice to the ordinary individual against a powerful adversary.
The accused in such cases usually are corporate entities or governments.
Generally, in class action suits, the damages paid may be small at an individual level or may not even be quantifiable.
The total damages calculated, however, could be large.
The difference between public interest litigation (Article 32 or Article 226 of the Constitution) and class action suits is that unlike a class action suit, a public interest litigation cannot be filed against a private party.

Benefits:

An immediate benefit is that the court has to hear only one case and not several. This reduces the chance of similar cases clogging the already overburdened courts.
As not everyone has the means or time to pursue a legal case, a small group of people with funds or the ability to raise money can bring justice to other victims who may be disadvantaged.
Companies are reluctant to face such suits as it affects their brand image. They prefer settling such cases faster to minimize the damage to their reputation.
An advantage for the accused parties, however, is that they have to deal with only one case.

Challenges:

Tort law has not developed sufficiently in India for a number of reasons, primarily due to the high cost and time-consuming nature of litigation.
The rules of the Bar Council of India do not allow lawyers to charge contingency fees, i.e., a percentage of the damages claimants receive if they win a case.
This disincentives lawyers from appearing in time-consuming cases that class action suits inevitably are.
Since litigation costs are high, class action suits can be made easier by allowing external parties to fund or sponsor the cost of litigation.
Some states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Karnataka have made changes in the Civil Procedure Code to allow this.

Way Forward

India should move in the direction of such accountability, which is taken seriously in developed economies, and which makes them better abodes for employment and business.
Lawyers should be incentivised for taking such cases, it will be a good first step in bringing class action suits into the mainstream.
Class action suits are necessary if India is to improve its ease of doing business rankings, especially in disaster prevention and risk of life.

SOURCE: THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT

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