 - btu no 103 of 11  the public liability insurance bill 1990 bulto provide for public liability insurance for the purpose of provicung immediate relief to the persons affected by accident occurring while handling any htlzardous substance and for matters connected thf!rewith or incidental thereto bm it enac""ed by parliament in the forty-first year of the republic of india as follows:-1 (1) this act may be called the public liability· idsuraiiae act, 1990 short title and com medcement 5 (2) it shall come into force on such date as the central ~vemment may appoint 2 in this act, unless the con~xt otherwise requires,-detlniti01ll (4) "accident" means an accident occurring while handlinr any hazardous substance; 10 (b) "collector" means the collector havin~ jurisdiction over the area in which the accident occurs; (c) "handling", in relation to any huardous subs"'ance, means the manufacture, processing, treatment, package, storage, transportation by vehicle, use, collection, destruction, conversion, offering for sale, '::ransfer or the like of such hazardous substance; (d) "hazardous substance" means any substance or preparation s which is deiilled as hazardous substance under the environment (protection) act, 1986, and e~eeding such quantity as may be speci-29 of 1986 fleel, by notification, by the central government; (e) "insurance" means insurance against liability under sabsection (1) of section 3; ~! 10 (1) "notification" means a notification published in the ojbcial gazette; (g), '\)wner" means a p~rson who has control over handling any h~ous substance; (h) "prescribed" means prescribed by rules made under this is act; (i) "rules" means rules made under this act; (j) "vehicle" means any mode of surface transport other than railways 3 (1) where death or injury to any pe~n (other than a workman) 20 or, damage ~ (arty property has resulted from an accident, the owner shall be liable to give such relief as is specified in the schedule for such death, injury or damage, liability to give relief in certain cases on p'rinciple of no fault (2) in any claims for relief under sub-se::tion (1), (hereinaftel" reierred to in this act as c1 aim for relief) the claimant shall not be 2s required ~ plead and establish that the death, injury or damage in resrect of which the claim has been made was due 'to any wrongful act, neglect or default of any person explanation-for the purposes of this section,-(i) "workman" has the meaning assigned to it in the workmen's 30 compensation act 1923; 8 of 1923 (ii) "iniurv" include<; permanen~ total or permanent partial disabdlt, or elc'kneas resulting out of an accident ,  ;'[ -:-,  ljutyof ownel·to take out insurance policies 4 (1) every owner shall take out, before he starts handling any hazardous substance, one or more insurance policies :providing for con· 3s tracts of insurance whereby he is insured against liability to give relief under sub-section (1) of section 3: provided that any owner handling any hazardous substance immediatelv h~fore the commencement of this act shall take out ruch insurance policy or llolicies as soon rs mav be and in any case within a period 40 ef one year from bucli commencement (2) every owner shall get the insurance policy, referred to in subsection (1), renewed from time to time before the expiry of the period of validity thereof so that the insurance policies may remain in force throughout the period during which such handling is continued· (3) the central government may, by notiitcation, exempt from the operation of sub-section (1) any owner namely:-5 (a) the central government; (b) any st~te government; (c) any corporation owned or controlled by the central government or a state government; or (d) any local authority: 10 provided that no such order shall be made in relation to such owner unless a fund has been established and is maintained by that owner in accordance with the rules made in this 1:ielialf for meetlng any dafilllt1 under sub-section (1) of section 3 5 whenever it comes to the notice of the collector that an accident verif\ca-15 has occurred at any place within his jlirisdiction, he shall verify the tion and occurrence of such accident and cause publicity to be given in such publica_ manner as he deems fit for inviting appliestions undersub-section (1) hon of of section 6 ' accident bycollector  6 (1) an application for claim for relief may be made-|   -  ,    ||----------------|| tion           || tor            || claim          || fot            || relief        |20 (a) by the person who has sustained the injury; (b) by the owner of the property; ') " (c) where death has resulted from the accident by all or any of the legal representatives of the deceased; or (a) by any agent duly authorised by such person or owner of 25 such property or all or any of the legal representatives of the deceased, as the case may be: provided that where all the legal representatives of the deceased have not joined in any such application for relief, the application shall be made on behalf of or for the benefit of all the legal representat1ve8 «d 30 the deceased and the legal representatives who have not so joined shall be impleaded as respondents to the application  (2) every application under sub-section (1) shall be made to the collector and shall be in such form contain such particulars and shall be accompanied by such documents as may be prescribed (' 3s ' ·(3) no application for relief shall be entertained unless it is made ~,,~ : within five wears of the occurrence of the accident " r  award of 7 (1) on receipt of an application under sub-section (1) of aection relief 6, the collec"'or shall, after giving notice of the application to the owner and the insurer and after giving the parties (including the insurer) an opportunity of being heard, hold an inquiry into the claim or, each of the claims, and may make an award determining the amount of j'elief 5 which appears to him to be just and specifying the person or persons to whom such amount of relief shall be paid (2) the collector shall arrange to deliver ,copies of the award to the parties concerned expeditiously and in any case within a period of fitteeu days from tlte date of the award 10 (3) when an award is made under this section, the owner or the insurer, as the case may be, who is required to pay any amount in terms of such award shall, within thirty days of the date of announcement of the award, deposit the entire amount so awarded in such manner as the collector may direct is ' i ' ~ \, •• " - ~ - - '   - - - - (4) in holding any inquiry under sub-se<fion (1) ,the collector may, subject to any rules made in this behal'f, follow such summary procedure as he thinks fit (5) the collector shall have all the powers of a civil court for the purpose of taking evidence on oath and of enforcing the attendance of 20 witnesses and of compelling the discovery and production of documents and material objects and for such other purposes as may be prescribed; and the collector shall be deemed to be a civil court for all the purposes of section 195 and chapter xxvi of the code of criminal procedure 2 of 1m 1973 2s (6) where the insurer or the owner against whom the award is made under sub-section (1) fails to deposit the amount of such award within the period specified under sub-section (1), such amount shall be reeoverable from the owner, or as the case may be, the insurer as arrears of land revenue or of public demand 30 (7) a claim for relief in respect of d~h of, or injury to, any person qr damage to' any property shall be disposed of as expeditiously as possible , ' , & (1) the ri'gbt to claim relief under sub--section (1) of section 3 in rellpect of death of, or injury to, any person or damage to any property ithail be in addition to any other right to claim compensation in respect 3s thereof under any other law for the time being in force provi siollj! -to othe'r right to claim compen aation"r deeth ric (2) notwithstanding anything con~n~ in sub-section (1), where in respect of death of, or injury to, any person or damage to any property, the owner; liable to give claim for relief, is also liable to pay compensation under any other law ~he amount of such compensation shall be 40 redl1ced by the amount of relief paid under this act t any person authorised by the central government may, for the purposes 01 ascertaining whether any requirements of this a~ or of any rule or of any direction given under this act have been complied witb, require any owner to submit to that person such information as that 45 person may reasonably think necessary 10 any person, authorised by the central government in this behalf, shall have a right to enter, at all reasonable times with such assis-power of ('ntryand inspection ~ce as he considers necessary, any place, premises or vehicle, where 5 hazardous substance is handled for the purpose of determining whether any provisions of this act or of any rule or of any direction given under this act is being or has been complied w::th and such owner is bound to render all assistance to such person power ot search and aseizu're 11 (1) if a person, authorised by the central government in this 10 behalf, has reason to believe that handling of any hazardous substance is taking place in any place, premises or vehicle, in contravention of subsection (1) of section 4, he may enter into and search such place, premises or vehicle for such handling of hazardous substance (z) where, as a result of any search under sub-section (1) any is handlin'g of hazardous substance has been found in relation to which contravention of sub-section (1) of section 4 has taken place, he may seize such hazardous substance and other things which in his opinion will be useful for, or relevant to, any proceeding under this act: provided that where it is not practicable to seize any such substance 20 or thing, he may serve on the owner an order tha~ owner shan not remove, part with, or otherwise deal with, the hazardous substance and such other things except with the previous permission of tha~ person (3) he may, if he has reason to believe 'that it is expedient so to do to prevent an accident dispose of 'the hazardous substance seized under 2s sub-section (2) immediately in such manner as he may deem fit (4) all expenses incurred by him in the disposal of hazardous substances under sub-sec""ion (3) shall be recoverable from the owner as arrears of land revenue or of public demand power to give directions 1! notwithstanding anything contained in any other law but subject 30 to the provisions of this act, the central govermn~ may in exercise of its powers and performance of its functions under this act, issue such directions in writing as it may deem fit for the purposes of this act to any owner or any person, officer, authority or agency and such owner, person officer, authority or agency shall be bound to comply with such 35 directions expianation-for the removal of doubts, it is hereby declared that ~e power to issue di~ons under this section includes the power to dfrect-(4) prohibition or regulation of the handling of any hazardous substance; or (b) stoppage or regulation of the supply of eleetrfcity, water or any other service powe'r to make application to courts lor restraining owner from handling hazardous substances 13 (1) h the central government or any person authoriaed by that government in this behalf has reason to believe that any owner bas been handling any hazardous substance in contraventian of any of the prov1, sions of this act, that government or, as the case may be, that period - may make an application to a court, not inferior to that of a metropolitan 5 magistrate or a judicial magistrate of first-class for restraining sucla owner from such handling (2) on receipt of the application under sub-section (1), the court may make such order as it deems fit (3) where under sub-section (2) the court makes an order restrain-10 ing any owner from handling hazardous substance it may, in tha't order-(a) direct such person to desist from such handling; (b) authorise the central government or, as the case may be, the person referred to in sub-section (1) if the direction under is clause (a) is not complied with by the owner to whom such direction is issued, to implement the direction in such manner as may be !ji)ecified by the court (4) all expenses incurred by the central govermnent, or as the case may be, the person in implementing the directicns of court under clause 20 (b) of sub-section (3), shall be recoverable from the owner as arrears of land revenue or of public dern::md 14 (1) if any owner contravenes any of the provisions of sub-section (1) or sub-section (2) of section 4 or fails to comply with any direction issued under section 12 he shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than one year and six months but which lc: may ex""end to six years, or with fine which shall not be less than one lakh rupees or with both penalty for confravention of subsection 0) or sub_ section (2) of section 4 or failure to comply with (2) whoever having already been convicted of an offence under subsection (1) is convicted for the second offence or any offence subsequent 30 to the second offence, he shau be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than two years but which may extend to seven years and with fine which shall n'ot be less than one lakh rupees 15 if any owner fails to comply with direction issued under section 9 or fails to comply with order issued under sub-section (2) of seetio!l 3s 11, or obstructs any person in discharge of his functions under sedlod 10 or sub-section (1) or sub-section (3) of section 11, he shall be punishable wlth imprisonment which may extend to three months, or with fine which may extend to ten thousand rupees, or with both direction~ under scctio-n 12 penalty for failure to comply with dire'ction under sectlon 9 or order under ik'ction 11 or obstruct ing any person in discharge of his functions under aeetlon 100r 11 of!en~ by com panics, 16 (1) where any offence under "jus act has been committed by a ,company, every person who, at the time the offence was committed, was directly in charge of, and was responsible to, the company for the conduct of the business of the company, as well as the company, shall be 5 deemed to be guilty of the offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against and pwlished acc'ordingly: provided that nothing contained in this sub-sectioll shall render any such person liable to any punishment provide~ in this act, ,if he proves that the offence was commit"'ed without his knowledge or that be exer-10 cised all due diligence to prevent the commission of such offence (2) notwithstanding anything contained in sllb-section (1), where 3n offence under this act has been commi~ed by a company and it is proved that the oflen<;e has been committed with the consent or connivance of, or is attributable to any neglect on ~e part of, any director, 15 manager, secretary or other ·offuler of the company, such director, manager, secretary or other officer shall also be deemed to be guilty of that offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly explanation-for the purpose$· of this section,--(a) "company" means any body corporate and includes a firm 20 or other association of individuals; (b) "director", in relation to a firm, means a partner in the firm 17 where an offence under this act has been commit"'ed by any department of gove!:nment, the head ot the departmpnt shall be' deemed to be guilty o'f the offence and ~hall be liable to be proceeded agmnst 25 and punished accordingly: offences by government departments, provided ~hat nothing contained in this section shall render such head of the department liable to any punishment if he proves that the offence was coiilllitted without his knowledge or that he exercised all due diligence to prevent the commission of such offence 30 18 no court shall take cognizance of any offence undet, this act ex-cogniz cept on a complaint made byance of offences (a) the central government or any authority or officer authorised in this behalf by that government; or (b) any person who has ~ven: notice of not less than sixty days 35 in the manner prescribed, of the alleged offence alld of his intention to make a complaint, to the central government or the authority or officer authorised as aforesaid ': power to delegate 19 the central government may, by notification, delegate, subject to such conditions and limitations as may be specified in the notification, 40 such of its powers and functions under this act (except the, power under section 22) as it may deem necessary or expedient to any person (including any officer, authority or other agency) 20 no suit, prosecution or other legal proceeding shall lie agadnst the government or the person, officer, authority or other agency in respect 45 of anything which 3s done or intended to be done in good fatth in pursuance of this act or the rules made or orders or directions issued thereunder protection of action taken in good fith advisory committee 21 (1) the central government may, from time to time, constitute an advisory committee on the matters relating to the insurance polley under this act (2) the advisory committee shall consist of-(a) three officers representing the central government; s (b) two persons representing the insurers; (c) two persons representing the owners; and (d) two persons from amongst the experts of insurance or hazardous substances, to be appointed by the central government 10 (2) the chainnan of the advisory committee shall be one of the members representing the central government, nominated in this behalf by that government meet of other laws zz the provisions of this act and any rules made thereunder shall have effect notwithstandin:g anything inconsistent therewith contained in 15 any other law 23 (1) the central government may, by notificatjion, make rules for carrying out the purposes of this act power to make rules (2) in particular, and without ~ejudice to the generality of the foregoing power such rules may provide for all or'any of the following 29 matters namely:-(4) estdblishment and maintenance of fund under sub-eection (3) of section 4; (b) the fonn of application and the particulars to be given therein and the documents to accompany such application under 2s sub-section (2) of section 6; (c) the procedure for holding an inquiry under sub-section (4) of section 7; (d) the purposes for which the collector shall have powers of a civil court under sub-section (5) of section 7; 30 (e) the manner in which notice of the offence and of the intention to make a complaint to the central government shall be given under clause (b) of ~on 18; (f) any other matter which is required to be, or may be, presicn~ r 35 (3) every rule made under this act shall be laid, as soon as may be after it is made, before each house of parliament, while it is in session for a total period of thirty days which may be comprised in one session or in two or more successive sessions, and if, before the expiry of the session immediately following the session or the successive sessions 40 aforesaid both houses agree in making any modification in the rule or both houses agree that the rule should not be made, the rule shall thereafter have effect only in such modified form or be of no effect, as the case may be; so however, that any such modification or annulment shall be without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done under 4s that rule [see section 3(1)]  (i) reimbursementof medical expejlies incurred up to a maximum of rs 12500 in eac~ case  '  s <ii: for taw accidents the relief will be ri\ 25,000 per person in addition to redmbursemenll of medical expenses, if any, incurred on the victim up to a maximum of rs 12,500 (iii) for permanent total or permanent partial disability or other injury or sickness, the relief will be (a) reimbursement of medical expens-10 es incurred, if any up to a maximum of rs 12,500 in each case and (b) cash relief on the basis of percentage of disablement as certified by an authorised physician the relief for total permanent disability will be rs 250,000 (iv) for loss of wages due to temporary pa~ial disability which ret s duoes the earning capadty of the victim, there will be a fixed monthly relief no~ exceeding rs 1,000 per month up to a maximum of 3 months: provided the victim has been hospitalised for a period exceeding 3 days and is above 16 years of age (v) up to rs 6,000, depending on the actual damage for any 20 damage to private property  statement of objects and reasonsthe growth of hazardous industries, processes and operations in india has been accompanied by the growing risks from acddents, not only to the workmen employed in such undertakings, but also innocent members of the public who may be in the vicinity sucb accidents lead to death and injury to human beings and other living b~ngs and damage private and public properties very often, the majority of the people affected are from the economically weaker sections and suffer great hardships because of delayed relief and compensation while workers and employees of hazardous installations are protected under separate laws, members of the publtc are not assured of any relief except through long legal processes indus'trial units seldom have the willingness to readily compensate the victims of accidents and the only reme~y ·now available for the victims is to go through prolonged litigatrlon in a court of law some units may not have the financial resources to provide even minimum relief 2 it is felt essential, therefore, to provide for mandatory public liability insurance for installations handling hazardous substances to provide minimum relief to the victims such an insurance apart from safeguarding the interests of the victims of accidents would also· provide cover and enable the industry to discharge its liability to settle large claims arising out of major accidents if the objective of providing immediate relief ~s to be achieved, the mandatory public liability insurance should be on the principle of "no fault" liability as it is limited to only relief on a limited scale however, availability of immediate relief would not prevent the victims to go to courts for claiming larger compensation 3 the bill seeks to achieve the above objectives new delhi; nilamani routray the 25th may, 1990  memorandum rroarding delegated legislationclause 23 empowers the central government to make rules for carrying out the purposes of the proposed legislation the matters with respect to which rules may be made have been detailed in sub-clause (2) and relate mainly-(i) to the establishment and maintenance of funds by the central government or the s'uite governments and corporations, etc, for giving relief to victims of accidents; (ii) to prescribe the form of applica1rion 00 the relief and the documents to be accompanied by such application; (iii) to prescribe the procedure for holding an inquiry by the collector for the purpose of making any award of the amount of relief; and (iv) to prescribe the purposes for which the collec""or has powers of a civil court 2 as the matters with respect to which rules under the aforesaid clause are sought to be made are matters of procedure or detail or matters with respect to which it is not practicable to make express provision in the legislation itself, the delegation of legislative power d8 of normal character  a billto provide for public liability insurance for the purpose of providing immediate relief to the persons affected by accident occurring while handling any hazardpus substance and for matten eennected therewith or incidental thereto (shri nilamani routray minister of environment and forests) 