Concerned about the serious threat posed by huge toxic material left in Union Carbide’s Bhopal plant after the 1984 gas tragedy, the Supreme Court on Thursday summoned top officials of the Union and MP government to suggest measures for its early disposal.
A bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadhyaya sought the presence of Union environment and chemical secretaries and Madhya Pradesh’s secretary for “Bhopal gas tragedy rehabilitation department” on Friday to give “assistance” to the court as how 350 tones of toxic waste deposited in Carbide plant should be disposed off as early as possible.
The top court had last month set a deadline of July for the disposal of the toxic material described by experts as unexploded “bomb”, with a potential of causing another tragedy like 1984 gas leak, which had resulted in the death of over 5,000 people and crippling thousands others for whole life. The direction was issued by the bench after Madhya Pradesh’s counsel Ravi Shankar Prasad pointed out certain technical difficulty in implementing the court order.
The main problem cited by the MP government counsel was that the waste treatment plant built 200 km away at Pitampura in Dhar district, was yet to be made operational. Though there would be facility for “treatment, storage and disposal” of the toxic material but unless it is made operational, the highly toxic waste lying in Carbide plant could not be shifted there.
Shifting of the material would also require highly technical expertise to keep its temperature down and if it could not be managed, there was a threat of another 1984 like disaster, MP government counsel submitted. Since a GoM set up by the Union government to deal with the issue had decided to allow German company GEM to handle the disposal, the state government wanted further extension of the deadline.
However, the top court said it was also a “tragedy” that no body wants to lift the toxic waste.
“People have suffered all these years. For how many years this issue of disposal going on? We are not Japan that we will raise in few months after Tsunami. We are concerned not only as judges but as human beings. It doesn’t take months to decide We will request everybody and ask the secretaries to sit together and discuss .”
The SC said that the officers were only called to seek their assistance and help the court to find out a solution to the problem lingering on for decades.