On CBI petition,SC reopens Bhopal case,issues notice

Fourteen years after it described the Bhopal gas leak disaster as an act of negligence,the Supreme Court today agreed to re-open its September 1996 judgment.

Fourteen years after it described the Bhopal gas leak disaster as an act of negligence,the Supreme Court today agreed to re-open its September 1996 judgment,a rarest-of-rare step,to assess if the criminal liability of Union Carbide employees extended to culpable homicide.

A special bench of Chief Justice S H Kapadia and his two seniormost colleagues in the Supreme Court,Justices Altamas Kabir and R V Raveendran,reached a consensus at 1.45 pm to take on board the CBIs curative petition.

The September 13,1996 judgment by a bench led by then CJI A M Ahmadi quashed CBIs charges of culpable homicide which attracts an imprisonment up to 10 years and ordered that any further trial would only involve the charge of negligence against Union Carbide staffers in the dock.

The decision,according to CBI,led to an ineffectual trial for 26 years after the disaster at the Bhopal Chief Judicial Magistrates court which saw former Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson declared an absconder in 1992.

The seven remaining accused persons,including former Union Carbide India chairman Keshub Mahindra,got a two-year jail sentence each on June 7 this year. Following a public outcry,a decision was taken by a Group of Ministers led by Home Minister P Chidambaram to file a curative petition.

Today,the bench issued notices to all seven accused. The matter,when listed,would come up for hearing in open court.

The petition,filed by the CBI on August 1,called the 1996 verdict a colossal failure of justice and sought to restore the criminal charge of Section 304 Part II IPC culpable homicide not amounting to murder against the accused.

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The perpetrators behind the leakage of hazardous MIC gas in the UCIL plant should not be able to walk away with a minimal punishment of two years under Section 304-A in one of worlds biggest industrial catastrophes, the CBI stated.

The 1996 judgment,it said,was delivered without consideration of any material placed before the court by the prosecution at that stage. The failure of justice on the Supreme Courts part opened a loophole for the accused persons to get away with minimal charges despite categorical evidence pointing to the commission of offences under Section 304 Part II of the IPC,the agency stated in its petition.

The CBI argued that,though ineffectual,the 26-year trial paved the way for it to collect categorical evidence to show that the tragedy was a result of the Union Carbide officials omission to act despite having knowledge of the defective functioning of the plant.