‘Betrayal’: Bhopal gas tragedy survivors slam SC’s dismissal of curative petition  

Bhopal gas tragedy survivors condemned the Supreme Court’s dismissal of curative petition which sought an additional Rs 7,844 crore from successor firms of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) to extend higher compensation to the victims of the deadly incident occurred in 1980s.

Five organizations of the December 1984 disaster have jointly condemned the top court’s decision to dismiss curative petition on Tuesday with the members saying that it reflected the collective failure of the Indian State to prevent the deadliest industrial disaster.

A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul said there was no rationale by the Centre to rake up the issue two decades after the settlement

The decision with the apex court’s February 1989 decision on the settlement of the case, the organizations called it a “judicial assault on the constitutional and legal rights of the Bhopal survivors”. As per media reports, the organizations resolved to continue their struggle for justice in Bhopal till all survivors are adequately compensated.

Rashida Bi, president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationary Karmchari Sangh, said: “The Bhopal victims were denied their day in court because of the pro-corporate bias of the Supreme Court bench. The counsel for Union Carbide that continues to abscond from charges of culpable homicide was given ample time to speak by the bench, while the counsel for the survivors’ organizations was only heard for just 45 minutes. Apparently, the Bench believes in a ‘fugitive entitlement doctrine.”

“The Supreme Court judges dismissed the case for additional compensation due to their insistence that the case must attain finality in line with the wishes of the corporate counsel,” said Balkrishna Namdeo, President of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pensionbhogee Sangharsh Morcha.

“How can you impose finality when the corporation’s crimes continue to victimize people? When gas affected people continue to die untimely deaths from cancers and other exposure induced chronic diseases? When the criminal remains absconding, and the suffering of its victims, including that of their progeny, continues, how can a Supreme Court bench draw the curtain over the injustice in Bhopal?

Rachna Dhingra of the Bhopal Group for Information & Action condemned the Supreme Court for deliberately ignoring arguments and facts presented by the survivors’ organizations.

“We presented official figures of injury and death analyzed by an international expert on epidemiology that proved the 1989 settlement has perpetrated a gross miscarriage of justice but the Supreme Court bench chose to blind themselves to it. The bench said that only an argument of fraud could re-open that settlement, while entirely ignore our counsel’s detailed submissions on the fraud committed by the Union Carbide to procure the settlement of 1989,” Dhingra pointed out.

The then Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson was prime accused in the case, but did not appear for the trial. A Bhopal court declared him an absconder in 1992. Two non-bailable warrants were issued before his death in 2014.

On June 7, 2010, a Bhopal court sentenced seven executives of Union Carbide India Limited to two years in jail.

-INDIAN NEWS STREAM