Supreme Court rejects CBI appeal on Bhopal retrial

In a big blow to the Bhopal gas leak victims and justice seekers, the Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) plea asking for retrial into the gas tragedy that left nearly 20,000 people dead and many maimed since the 1984 industrial accident.

The CBI had sought review of a 1996 judgement that had diluted charges against the accused from culpable homicide not amounting to murder to criminal negligence.

Slamming the CBI for delaying in filing the plea for 14 years, the court said “no satisfactory explanation has been given by the CBI and Madhya Pradesh government on filing a curative petition after a lapse of 14 years.”

The court said the judgement in 1996 was “never a fetter for the CBI or Madhya Pradesh government to seek enhancement of charges.”

On the intervening night of 2/3 December 1984, the inhabitants of the city of Bhopal became victims of the world’s worst industrial disaster.

40 tonnes of methyl iscocyanate (MIC – a highly volatile toxic chemical) stored at the pesticide plant – owned by Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), a subsidiary of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), USA – was contaminated with water and other impurities.

As a result, a mixture of deadly gases escaped from the factory killing several thousands of people and inflicting grievous injuries on at least 500,000 others.

Last year, a lower court in Bhopal had awarded mere two years of imprisonment to seven convicted Union Carbide officials for the incident while not mentioning US-based Warren Anderson, the former Union Carbide chief.

A Delhi court in March permitted the CBI to seek the extradition of Warren Anderson in connection with the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.

Anderson, now over 90, had been proclaimed offender by the Bhopal chief judicial magistrate in 1993 after he jumped bail, which he had procured following his arrest on Dec 7, 1984.

He had flown out of India soon with the help of Indian authorities after his bail, never to return.