Events & Issues

New Delhi, 6 July 2010  

Bhopal Gas Scandal

FRESH CONTROVERSIES SURFACE

By Proloy Bagchi

From its very genesis, the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) plant in Bhopal was surrounded in controversies. The Corporation submitted its proposal for establishment of this pesticide factory to the then Department of Industrial Development of the Union Government in 1970. Finding it unacceptable on account of the obsolete technology that was proposed to be “dumped in India”, the proposal was seemingly put in cold storage.

However, five years later during the Emergency in September 1975, the Department officials were horrified to learn that the proposal had been approved. The grapevine had it that the UCC got around somebody powerful and influential – whose identity can only be guessed.

Land for the factory was allotted in Bhopal away from the town. There was no habitation in a radius of around two kilometres. The Madhya Pradesh Government declared the area as an “obnoxious Industrial zone” and stated no settlement would be allowed in it. But as generally happens with Governments, over time all declarations, assurances and decisions were forgotten. Soon slums sprouted around the factory and later these even got attached to the factory wall.

Keen on votes, the then Chief Minister Arjun Singh, instead of taking steps to resettle the slum-dwellers elsewhere, generously handed the rights to the land they illegally occupied. The tragedy, perhaps, would have been of far less magnitude had the initial assurances of keeping the area free of habitation been kept.

Not a few concerned Bhopal residents, aware of the inadequate safety arrangements in the UCIL plant, repeatedly warned that the city was sitting on a powder keg. Questions were also raised in the State but went unheeded or were summarily denied by the UCC. According to the residents the number of casualties was much more than what was officially acknowledged.

There was a distinct attempt by the State Administration to keep the figures down. This is corroborated by the fact that the figure of 3000 dead was used for an out-of-court settlement as late as 1989. There is a wide variance between the official and unofficial figures. Officially 15,000 died; the unofficial figures are between 20000-25000. In fact, UCC’s lawyer Fali Nariman recently acknowledged that the casualties figures cited at the time of settlement of compensation were undependable. No real count was ever taken.

Countless words have been written about the “safe passage” given to Warren Anderson, his arrest and subsequent release. But the Central Government now denies availability of records regarding this. True, the Group of Ministers (GoM), constituted in May last to recommend action on the tragedy, steadfastly maintains that the then Prime Minister, late Rajiv Gandhi, was briefed about Anderson only after he had left India, notwithstanding that a report in the Hindu states otherwise.

According to the newspaper’s December 7, 1984 edition, Gandhi’s Principal Secretary, PC Alexander, brought Anderson’s arrest to the Prime Minister’s notice, who was campaigning in MP for the ensuing elections. And it was, “highly unlikely that the Chief Minister would have taken action without informing him”. Clearly, a perceptible effort has throughout been made to keep Rajiv Gandhi out of this unseemly controversy.

Besides, the 1989 settlement between the Union Government and UCC was not free from controversy. Having assumed the sole power to represent the victims (without obtaining their consent) in civil litigation against the Corporation, the Central Government filed a $ 3 billion compensation suit on their behalf in the US Federal Court in 1985. After the case was sent to the Indian courts in 1986 the Government settled for an out-of-court with the UCC in 1989, without consulting the victims.

Worse, it agreed to a compensation of only $470 million, a mere 15% of the original amount, for only 3000 dead against the official figure of 15000. The hearings were conducted in-camera by the Supreme Court’s then Chief Justice RS Pathak. Also that UCC’s representatives reportedly came straight from the Prime Minister’s house.

Not only that. The settlement also extinguished all financial liabilities of the UCC and the rights of the victims to file civil and criminal cases against it, though the last was later overturned by the same Court. Soon thereafter, Justice Pathak was nominated for appointment at the International Court of Justice at The Hague, making the settlement highly suspect. It has now been revealed that the Government turned down a marginally higher UCC offer of $ 500 million with the rider of audit of the payments by an external auditor.

Sadly, many would have escaped the suffering from the contaminants and toxic wastes that were left behind had the then State Government allowed the plant’s cleaning to be completed. The Eveready Company, which took the plant over from UCC, did its best till 1989 when the State Government stepped in.

Questionably, why did the Government, which had leased the land to UCC, not insist on taking it back free of all contaminants? Two, not only was the take-over highly suspicious but has also needlessly burdened the State exchequer with over Rs1500 crores.

Adding salt to the wounds, the recent decision of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Bhopal, on June 7, 2010 handing out only two years’ imprisonment for UCIL bosses has triggered off another bout of controversies. Recall, in September 1996, the then Supreme Court Chief Justice, AM Ahmedi, had watered down the charges against the accused from “culpable homicide not amounting to murder” to “causing death due to negligence”. His contention that he could not support the charge of culpable homicide unless it was indicated prima facie that the plant was run on that fateful night by the accused with the knowledge that it was likely to cause death of thousands has been proved wrong by many.

Shockingly, Ahmedi ignored the fact that storing thousands of tons of MIC in an inefficiently run and neglected plant with obsolete technology and run-down safety measures was inviting disaster were enough to prove the culpability of the accused! Many criticised his judgment as dubious. Not surprisingly, these feelings gained wide support when, ironically, Justice Ahmedi was appointed Chairman for life of the UCC-funded Bhopal Memorial Trust Hospital.  ---- INFA 

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)