New ray of hope for gas victims
There is renewed hope for the gas victims as people across the country have become one with their cause and are expressing outrage over denial of justice and the manoeuvres of those in authority in Bhopal who had allowed the then Union Carbide Corporation chief Warren Anderson to escape to America when the city was struck by the worst industrial catastrophe in December 1984.
The gas victims, led by Gas Peedit Sangharsh Sahayog Samiti (GPSSS), took out a torch procession in front of the abandoned Carbide plant here to express resentment this weekend.
On this occasion, Gas Peedit Sangharsh Sahayog Samiti convenor Sadhna Karnik said that the gas victims want justice and punishment for those who were responsible for destroying evidence.
They are also angry and demanding the ouster of Justice A.M. Ahmadi from the chairmanship of Bhopal Memorial Hospital Trust.
Activists working for the cause of those affected by the poisonous gas leak more than 25 year ago, point out that the gas victims had felt cheated when the Supreme Court had buried all criminal liability against those accused of causing the death of thousands of Bhopal residents and critically wounding hundreds of thousand others and stamped its approval for the settlement of claims capping at $470 million in February 1989.
The Supreme Court, in its order on February 15, 1989, said: “To enable the effectuation of the settlement, all civil proceedings related to and arising out of the Bhopal Gas disaster shall hereby stand transferred to this court and shall stand concluded in terms of the settlement, and all criminal proceedings related to and arising out of the disaster shall stand quashed wherever these may be pending.”
The then Chief Justice of India Rahgunandan Swarup Pathak, who had presided over the bench that gave this order, relinquished the office of the Chief Justice of India three months later on appointment as judge, International Court of Justice at The Hague.
Responding to a writ petition by Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan and Bhopal Gas Peedit Sangharsh Sahayog Samiti and others, the Supreme Court revoked the criminal immunity granted to UCC and all other accused in the Bhopal gas leak disaster case in March 1991.
The victims once again felt they had been let down when Supreme Court reduced the charge against the accused from Section 304 part II of Indian Penal Code to Section 304-A IPC that is from culpable homicide to a case of negligence in September 1996.
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