Justice denied!

December 2 1984 people of Bhopal were sleeping peacefully in their houses at night! The wintry night! They didn't imagine-that was gonna be the last sleep of their lives!People started dying in the most hideous ways after a toxic gas leak! Some vomited uncontrollably went into convulsions and fell dead.Others chocked to death , drowning in their own body fluids after the Union Carbide's pesticide factory, whose safety system were reportedly not functioning; exploded filling the streets of Bhopal with toxic clouds of Methyl isocyanate  gas(MIC). More than 15,000 people was killed and affected many more. 

During the intervening night of December 2, a large amount of water entered 'Tank 610' which contained 42 tonnes of MIC , much more than the safety rules permitted! The reaction generated a major increase in the temperature inside the tank to over 240 degree Celsius. This forced the emergency venting of pressure from the tank, releasing the large volume of toxic gases! The reaction was speeded up  by the presence of iron from corroding pipelines.

It is known that the workers cleaned the pipelines . It is known that workers cleaned the pipelines with water but they are not told by the supervisor to add a slip blind water isolation plate. Because of this and of the bad maintenance , the workers considered it possible for water to have accidentally entered the tank.


Legal History:  A few months after the tragedy the Indian Govt had failed a claim of $3.3 b in US courts against Union Carbide. After a US district court transferred all the litigation to India , the Govt in 1989 settled for a measly compensation of of $470 m in an out of court deal which which worked out to under Rs.75,000each for death victims and Rs. 25,000 for the injured.

The main accused Warren Anderson , the Union Carbide chairman declared a fugitive in 1992 and never appeared in an Indian court. Furthermore , in 1996 , the SC reduced the charges against the accused from culpable homicide from not amounting to murder , punishable by a maximum 10 years jail term to causing death by negligible , which invites a sentence of only 2 years.

The true Bhopal verdict was delivered within four days of the tragedy , in December 1984, when Anderson was smuggled out of Bhopal on a state Govt aircraft and then put on a plane to America .Since the people have witnessed a pretend justice farce played out by Govt, police and the judiciary.

Union carbide and its collaborators including Indians of course , have sustained themselves with a lie, that it was an Indian disaster since the plant was built and run by Indians! The design is an exact replica of an American Plant and an American who was terrified of being tried in India was in charge of management.   

11th May , 2011:The Supreme Court turned down on Wednesday a government demand to re-open the case into the 1984 Bhopal Gas tragedy and hand harsher sentences to seven men convicted of negligence.

The court dismissed CBI's curative petition seeking restoration of stringent charges against Bhopal tragedy accused saying it was filed 14 years after the 1996 judgment, which was only a prima facie view of evidence that had come on record till that time.

A five-judge constitutional bench, headed by Chief Justice S H Kapadia, however, left a window of opportunity open saying the pending proceedings before the sessions court against the Chief Judicial Magistrate's judgement awarding two years sentence to the accused.

This is a familiar story of the Indian state ans it's Law enforcement agencies failing to deliver justice. Be it Bhopal Gas tragedy or  1984 Anti Sikh riots or the 1992 Ayodhya demolition , the state has been unable to either punish the perpetrators or adequately compensate victims. This is the failure of the legal system of a country like India.