Survivors of Bhopal gas disaster today said the Supreme Court decision to dismiss the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) curative petition has come like another “insult” to them. They threatened to intensify their movement, but non-government organisations (NGOs) supporting them see a ray of hope in the decision.
After a public outcry, the Madhya Pradesh government and CBI filed a curative petition in the apex court against an earlier judgement that diluted charges against the accused, including Keshub Mahindra, absconding Warren Anderson and others in the Bhopal gas disaster case.
However, the court in its decision has raised hopes of the survivors as lower or session courts can keep their doors ajar and can enhance charges under various other sections on basis tangible evidences if produced before the court.
The Supreme Court in 1996 ruled the accused could not be tried for culpable homicide but only for negligence like those of careless driving, which carries a shorter sentence.
Twenty six years after the world’s worst industrial disaster that had left over 15,000 people dead, a local court in June last year had convicted all the eight accused including former Union Carbide India Ltd Chairman Keshub Mahindra in the Bhopal Gas tragedy case. To this the state government, CBI and Bhopal group for auctioned had filed curative petition in Supreme Court.
“Whey survivors should suffer if the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or government machinery has failed to act in recent years? This is not a customary in the Supreme Court to ignore the sorry side of sufferers. This verdict is another insult to us. Moreover provisions of curative petitions have come to legal process only after 2002. We had also filed a case in Supreme Court to frame charges against Keshub Mahindra, then Union Carbide India chairman and other convicted persons under section 302 as Mahindra and entire management of company were aware of the risks which the Union Carbide plant was posing to hundreds of human lives,” Sachinath Sarangi, chief activist of Bhopal group for Information and Action told Business Standard.
The NGO is fighting in interest of survivors and intervener in various petitions filed in the Bhopal court. “This decision however has a ray of hope that the session court Bhopal now can consider the evidences, witnesses and facts which are suffice to frame charges against the convicted persons under various other sections like 304 –II and 302 of Indian Penal Code,” he said.
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Mahindra and others were held guilty under Sections 304-A (causing death by negligence), 304-II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 336, 337 and 338 (gross negligence) of the Indian Penal Code. Later they went out of the court with glee after obtain bail immediately on June 7 last year.
Abhilash Singh, a lawyer who took up the curative petition to Supreme Court on behalf of Bhopal Group for Action told Business Standard, “Supreme Court has completely failed to address the grievances of the victims; it has just considered the technical points of the law and not the gravity of the petition.”
The state government authorities, their lawyer and CBI Counsel were not available for comment. However secretary Bhopal Gas Relief and Rehabilitation Department SR Mohanti said, “A petition to enhance the charges is already in a Bhopal court.”