JOIN USThe responses to the Bhopal gas tragedy case judgement have exposed not only the iniquity and unfairness involved in the verdict but also the inability of the administration at different levels and the legal system to provide justice to the victims. Worse, there are indications that the government indulged in a double game to deny justice to the affected people and protect the American management of Union Carbide. A former CBI official’s revelation that he was instructed to go slow on the charges against the company chairman Warren Anderson shows the hypocrisy in the handling of the case by the government. This was as criminal as the failure of the company in ensuring safety of its operations in the plant. Taken together with the agreement to accept a meagre amount from the company as compensation for the victims, it only shows the complicity of the government in the denial of justice. The after-effects of the gas leakage have continued to this day in terms of deaths, disease and contamination. Not a single victim has been compensated adequately till now and there cannot be a worse case of administrative failure.
The failure of the legal system is equally stark. Not only was the judicial decision inordinately delayed, but the gravity of the crime was also diluted when the charges were changed from culpable homicide not amounting to murder to causing death by negligence. The Bhopal court’s judgement should not only be appealed against but the legal issues involved in the case should be reviewed. Former chief justice of India, A H Ahmadi, whose bench reduced the charges, has said that the court’s judgement was not challenged by anybody. It can still be done and a fresh case, which will take into consideration and reflect the enormity of the crime, can be pursued. Only then can the case reach its closure.
It has been proved that the law on industrial and environment disasters is inadequate to deal with cases like the Bhopal gas leakage. The existing laws need amendment and fresh legal provisions are called for. This is important in the context of plans to set up several nuclear power plants in the country by foreign companies. The flaws in the nuclear liability bill being pushed by the government become glaring in this light. The claim of the government that the provisions of the bill can take care of all eventualities does not at all seem convincing.