Disapproving the decades-old slanging match going on between the Centre and Madhya Pradesh over the disposal of highly-dangerous toxic waste left in Union Carbide’s Bhopal plant after the 1984 tragedy that killed over 5,000 people, the Supreme Court on Friday asked the Group of Ministers (GoM) to take a final decision on the issue.
Giving a tentative deadline of two weeks to the GoM to take a final call, a bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadhaya said, “The unending football match” being played between the Centre and state government should stop immediately.
The bench said it is ready even to sit during the summer vacation to deal with this urgent matter and find a final solution and recommended to Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia that he should fix a schedule for special sitting of the bench during vacation to take up the matter after the GoM has taken a decision.
The top court made the strong comments after hearing the views of the Union environment and chemical secretaries, and secretary of Bhopla gas rehabilitation department of MP government specially summoned to know the progress made regarding the disposal of the 350 tones of highly toxic material.
Amicus curie Ravi Shakar Prasad and MP’s counsel P.S. Patwalia opposed proposal for experimental disposal in Pitampura plant in Dhar district some 200 km from Bhopal, saying if the experiment failed, it would result in another 1984 like tragedy. The MP government could not take such a “risk” as whenever such attempts were made in the past people in thousands had come on the roads to protest.