Bhopal Gas Tragedy: Supreme Court to hear plea for additional compensation in April

The Supreme Court will hear in April, the case concerning demand for additional compensation from Union Carbide company towards the victims of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy..Additional Solicitor General Madhavi Divan, appearing for the Union of India, today sought an early hearing of the curative petition which was first filed in 2011. In November 2018, a plea was filed by the Centre seeking an early hearing of this curative petition which came up for hearing today..The Bench of Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjiv Khanna proceeded to direct that the matter be listed in April 2019..The Supreme Court, in its judgment delivered in 1989 had set the amount of compensation to be paid at USD 470 Million. This amount was based on an incorrect number of deaths and injuries recorded, the Centre claims..An additional compensation of over Rs. 7,000 Crores is being sought by the Centre as compensation towards the victims of the tragedy. The curative petition states that the number of deaths that took place was 5295 as opposed to the earlier figure of 3000 casualties..The number of injuries caused by the tragedy was also higher as compared to the earlier figure of 70,000 which was taken into consideration by the Court while fixing the amount of compensation, the Centre has stated..On account of the matter involving public interest, the Centre filed an application in November of 2018 seeking an early hearing on the grounds that any further delay in the case will cause irreparable loss and damage..Thousands of lives were lost and over one lac people were affected by the toxic gas leak in the Union Carbide Plant in Bhopal on the intervening night of December 2 and 3, 1984. The victims have been fighting not just for adequate compensation but also for criminal prosecution against the executives in charge at the time..The Chairman of UCC at the time, Warren Anderson, was made the prime accused in the case but was subsequently declared an “absconder” when he failed to appear for the trials. In 2010, a Bhopal Court had convicted seven persons involved with UCC and sentenced them to two-year imprisonment..The Curative petition has also prayed for stricter punishment for the convicts stating that the accused had full knowledge of the fatal design flaws of the plant. The petition states,.“The Accused, and others, had full knowledge that the MIC plant in Bhopal India was designed with fatal design flaws, including the complete lack of any emergency remediation facilities to counter a runaway reaction of the MIC stored.”.The material used in the plant for storage of the toxic gas was sub-standard and was “seemingly motivated by the desire to increase profits with reckless disregard to human life.” The petition further states that not only was there no evacuation plan in case of a leak, but the safety siren was not working on the night of the incident..“The safety and maintenance of the MIC factory was, with full knowledge of the consequences, fatally disregarded. None of the safety features were working.”