The Supreme Court's rejection of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) plea asking for more stringent punishment for the accused in the Bhopal gas tragedy was a "telling comment" on the government's attitude, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said on Wednesday.
The opposition party said the government was not interested in giving justice to the victims of the world's worst industrial disaster. Referring to US-based former Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson, BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said: "They (government) gave him VIP treatment, gave the government aircraft and allowed him to flee the country." Arrested December 7, 1984, Anderson was granted bail by a Bhopal court.
He flew back to the US and never returned to India to stand trial. "So the government is not interested to give justice to the Bhopal gas victims and the government is not at all interested to punish the guilty," Javadekar said. The Supreme Court's decision on Wednesday was, therefore, a "telling comment on the government's attitude", he said. The apex court on Wednesday dismissed the CBI's petition challenging its 1996 verdict that had diluted charges against the accused — then Union Carbide India Ltd (UCIL) chairman Keshub Mahindra and six others — for causing death due to negligence.
The Union Carbide disaster, in which poisonous methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leaked from the plant on the night of Dec 2-3, 1984, killed 3,000 people instantly and 25,000 over the years. It also affected 100,000 people and estimates are that more than 500,000 continue to suffer from ill effects of the gas.