Victims to challenge SCs 96 order soon

In a set of grounds which form part of the curative petition,as per the senior lawyer,the victims describe the decision by the Bench led by then Chief Justice of India AM Ahmedi as a concoction of technicalities which sought to efface a monumental human tragedy.

In 1996,the Supreme Court Bench quashed the CBI charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder,that provided for a maximum 10 years imprisonment and replaced it with the provision for causing death by negligence with a maximum punishment of only two years.

Twenty-six years after the industrial disaster,a Bhopal court on June 7,2010 convicted former Union Carbide India chairman Keshub Mahindra and six others chiefly for criminal negligence and sentenced them to two-year jail term.

The Chief Judicial Magistrate maintained silence about former Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson in the judgment. Anderson,89,known to be living in the US,had left the country soon after the tragedy and was declared an absconder.

The judgment was a combined effect of confusion,incompetence and cover-up on the part of the investigating and prosecuting agencies. But in case of a monumental tragedy of this nature,this Honourable Court SC ought to have been more careful in either personally scrutinising the material or allowed the trial court to do the same in course of the trial, the petition read.

The victims said it was grossly improper of the Supreme Court to quash a criminal charge in a matter pending trial,which has in turn resulted in binding the hands of the trial court.

The victims claim they had shared evidence with both Justice N K Singh Commission and CBI,pointing out that the accused persons had full knowledge that if there was a gas leak it would cause death of not just the workers in the factory but also of thousands in the vicinity.

This may be indeed the last opportunity for this Honourable Court to verify its doubts and undo justice. The legal and procedural technicalities should give way to paramount consideration of justice and fairness. The considerations in a curative petition go beyond legalism and are largely humanitarian, the victims said.