Bhopal Tragedy: after 25 years Indian court convicts 7 in Bhopal gas disaster

[naam-ghum-jayega]

"The Union Carbide subsidiary's former employees, all Indian nationals and many in their 70s, were sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay fines of 100,000 rupees ($2,175) apiece. All were released on bail shortly after the verdict."

Should'nt India close judiciary branch?
What use is judicial system which takes 25 yrs to get 1st verdict, not to mention the appeals in higher
courts?
No mention of what happened to $470 million given by Union Carbide.

Why this tamasha or false hope of justice, just remove this branch.

Was'nt verdict for Bombay 93 riots case delivered few months ago?

are judges in India incompetent to decide a case or whole system of trial is flawed?

25 years, how can any case take 25 yrs

On top of it, current law minister Mr Moily says "I would like to say justice is buried". Can
he also say for last 25 yrs (most of which congress was at centre) how is fellow congressmen
contributed to burying the justice.


--ngj

[Desi]

It is inexcusable when any court case continues so many years. There is something definitely wrong with our justice system.

Who and what is to blame, I am not educated enough about it to say.

Just this morning, I heard on the radio here in Chicago, Governor Blagojevich's lawyers wanted 2.5 hours for opening statements and the judge told them - No way. They have one hour and 35 minutes to make opening statements. The prosecution had asked for 30 minutes for opening statements and they got it. I liked that. I do not know if judges just are lax, grant continuances etc, etc. Why did the Bhopal case take so long?

[sophisticuss]

Yes, I agree Justice system is broken .
But remember, political will can easily circumvent this.

There are so many cases where special courts have been formed and justice delivered within 1-2 years.
( example : special court for Kasab, special court for trying gujarat riots, one for Afzal guru.. )...

what prevented the govt to form a fast-track special court for this ?..A lack of will..

Also can anyone provide the details of deal union govt stuck with union carbide ? I always see in papers ,they settled it for some $300 ml in 1985 or so ...and hence not liable...

[returning_indian]

Big companies and third world country, what did you expect?

[oasis138]

Big companies and third world country, what did you expect?

Its not the judicial system that's broken but the fact that the political class/bureaucrats can easily circumvent it.......soemone mentioned there was a special court for Kasab...firstly an open and shut case like that should be processed in weeks not 1.5 years...secondly i am ready to bet with anyone that Kasab will not be hanged before 2015 if at all...wait and watch how even he can circumvent the judicial process and buy time till he fades from memory....i only hope he dosent get released at some point..winl elections and become an MP.

[return2del]

The Bhopal incident and its follow-up over the last 26 years is prime example of how inexcusably everything related to government in this country is broken - including not only the judiciary, but also the central government, state governments, CBI, government's scientific departments, industrial control organizations, regulators, district administration, emergency response units, medical facilities, development and rehabilitation organizations etc etc. It also demonstrates how mainstream media in India is full of pandering idiots.

I’ve been reading up on this saga for the past few days, and here are a few facts about the Bhopal disaster that would make any rational mind seethe in rage at the criminally callous behavior of Indian authorities:

- In 1989 (5 years after the incident), the Indian government reached a settlement with Union Carbide and UC India Limited to extract $470M from them towards victim compensation and recovery efforts. UC and UCIL paid this in hard cash within 10 days flat. Believe it or not, 21 years later, today a vast majority of that money has still not been distributed to victims or applied towards any rehabilitation, and is still unaccounted for. Needless to say this money could have been used to improve the lot of survivors and victims' families manifold

- Right after the disaster, the government sealed the Union Carbide factory, confiscated all documents and logs, and restricted access to factory workers to any third parties. It solely mandated its arms CSIR and CBI to conduct the investigations. CSIR and CBI didn’t release their investigation reports to the public till literally decades after the incident. The theory these organization finally propagated goes as follows –run-off water from a pipe cleaning operation ran into a tank full of a sensitive chemical, causing the massive gas buildup and leak. This pipe run-off theory couldn’t be validated in large scale simulations conducted by CSIR themselves (and their report accepts this), or through any other concrete evidence. Moreover, this theory doesn’t explain how thousands of liters of water can run off from a pipe cleaning operation into a sealed tank.
On the other hand, here is a report on an investigation conducted by consultancy firm Arthur D Little during a brief window of limited access that the government provided them many months later (this was done at behest of Union Carbide, so there is reason to be skeptical here too), and written by an Indian with a MIT PhD: http://www.bhopal.com/pdfs/casestdy.pdf. I don’t know what the real truth is, but just compare the quality of analysis in this report with that in any of the Indian government/judiciary reports. Why didn’t the Indian government machinery in its infinite wisdom ever get to the bottom of the matter, and come up with a more convincing explanation and report? I think the answer lies in the government’s incentive to find scapegoats, and there is no scapegoat as electorally lucrative as a foreign hand

- For a moment, let’s believe the government’s position that the accident was caused solely by poor industrial processes and extreme criminal negligence by union carbide’s senior management, and that it (government) did not know dangerous pesticides were being manufactured within city limits in a densely populated area. That itself raises many questions. Why were there insufficient controls on such a dangerous plant? Why was it not checked frequently by government safety inspectors? Why was it in the middle of a city? Why did they not even know that this plant was manufacturing pesticides using a very dangerous chemical? Who gave all the necessary permission to setup and operate such a plant in the middle of a city?

- Over the last 26 years, many entities, including the Indian government and media, have been clamoring for the blood of Warren Anderson (then global CEO of Union Carbide). Here is the opinion of Solee Sorabjee on this issue (Indian Attorney General at the time of writing): http://www.bhopal.com/opinion.htm, which clearly indicates extraditing Anderson was untenable. Exactly. Do you think a global Fortune 50 CEO has much knowledge about each of its tens/hundreds of factories in remote corners of the world, let alone make day-to-day operational decisions for processes, materials and quality of labor used in each of them? So why has government/media continued to bark up the wrong tree, wasting precious resources and time trying to extradite Anderson on a charge that effectively imputes that he had prior knowledge of poor processes within the Bhopal factory AND intentionally didn’t do anything to improve them with the aim of causing deaths?
Why waste so many years on such an untenable argument? And here is more, Anderson actually took the first flight from US to India in Dec 1984 after the accident, and was arrested at the airport on arrival. He was then released on bail within a few hours and escorted out of the country by the Indian government itself. So why this dual attitude now? If this was the guy really responsible for the whole thing, why let him go away after arresting him?

The above clearly shows that Indian authorities didn’t miss this enormous tragedy to turn it into their usual business of going after scapegoats, votes and notes.

Here are some issues that Indian journalists should be investigating, but aren’t:
• A step by step account of what exactly went wrong on the night of Dec 3, 1984 (rather than copy-pasting from Wikipedia to the front page of TOI or ET), and where is one comprehensive government report on how the accident unfolded, with well reasoned evidence, and what the learings from that accident are?
• What exactly happened to the $470M provided by Union Carbide in 1989 – how much of it reached victims’ families and survivors? What happened to the rest of it? Why wasn’t the entire money deployed for compensation and rehabilitation?
• Why hasn’t any government safety inspector or the guy who gave the permission to manufacture pesticides in the middle of Bhopal, or anyone else from government administration; or any worker from the Bhopal factory been implicated in this whole saga? Can such an accident be blamed entirely on senior management of a company? Just take a look at any construction/manufacturing work going on around you in India, and you’ll know the level of utmost laxity that pervades work ethic in this country – especially government machinery and unskilled/semi-skilled workers.
Such large disasters are caused by a sequence of untoward oversights and events, and surely there must have been a worker who forgot to shut a valve, connected a wrong pipe, didn’t follow instructions, forgot to raise an alarm, didn’t repair a malfunctioning part, ignored warning indicators etc, and there must have been at least one government official who forgot to or chose to overlook his responsibilities of oversight?
• What checks and balances have been executed across the country in terms of more stringent industrial safety norms, frequent external inspections, and to ensure that dangerous units are removed from within city limits?
• What emergency response readiness measures have since been implemented at Industrial units, and in surrounding districts?

Like everything else in India, truth and reason have fallen by the wayside as entities have acted solely out of their own selfish incentives: Politicians’ incentives for votes, money, and finding prominent scapegoats; Media’s incentive to pander to public, without having to do any actual work; and Judiciary’s incentive to avoid wrath of government and public by not make any critical decisions for decades.

[KirKS]

Like everything else in India, truth and reason have fallen by the wayside as entities have acted solely out of their own selfish incentives: Politicians’ incentives for votes, money, and finding prominent scapegoats; Media’s incentive to pander to public, without having to do any actual work; and Judiciary’s incentive to avoid wrath of government and public by not make any critical decisions for decades.

Awesome writeup return2del. Very informative and I thank you for that!

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Big companies and third world country, what did you expect?

Compare nearly $646 per victim as potential damage paid by Union Carbide for Silicon Breast implant law suit to nearly $260 (Rs.12,000) per death in Bhopal. Compare the value of potential death (not actual death) to that of death in the eyes of UC.

Read more in here: http://www.bhopal.net/oldsite/oldwebsite/UCC25.html

Also, compare $1.8M for 9/11 victims (unrelated to UC though) to $260 for Bhopal tragedy victims! Shows how life is valued in US v/s India.

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Why did the Bhopal case take so long?

I am not at all surprised either with the delay in justice (or the lack of it) or letting those who should have been punished both in India and US scot-free. You know why? :))

This mass killing was also from 1984. So the footprints of die-nasty politics was evident everywhere. The same party was in power both at center and state. Looking back at how it 'punished' the guilty of the first mass murder, anyone sane wouldn't expect the second mass killing guilty to get any harsher 'punishment'

Maybe the 1984 Prime Minister hadn't recovered the "shock" of seeing bullet ridden bodies of his mom a month back. So his care for his family & future dynasty distracted him from acting firm right at the start. :p He also erred later in 1989 and his trend was followed by other die-nasty worshipers during later days

Maybe the CM of MP then, Arjun Singh, was busy obeying "someone's" orders in letting the guilty escape from India.. and didn't get time over the next quarter of a century to actually mobilize public support or present evidence to the court as he was busy with OBC reservation & other dramas. After all a CM who was a realm during India's worst chemical/gas disaster was rewarded repeatedly by Congress party with plum positions at the center. Any surprises there?

Maybe yet another important figure in this scandal of letting the guilty go free, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, was rewarded with the position of spokesperson of Congress party. After all when the lawyer who represented Union Carbide is the now the party's spokesperson, should anyone spell out "conflict of interest" loudly?

Lastly, when 2010 verdict was nearing its date, Manmohan Singh was busy 'negotiating' Nuclear Liability bill with the same country that never apologized, neither punished the guilty of Bhopal disaster. How could he go aggressively presenting case from government side when his madam wants him to get the liability bill negotiated & not jeopardized? To hell with those who died in 1984, to those babies in mothers' bellies that never saw a day out in the sun, and the lakhs who still suffer due to jeopardy.

Only if a different party was at power either in Bhopal or at Delhi in 1984, a million SIT probes & a few dozen real or perceived death penalties would have been given by now. What was said to a neighbor of Madhya Pradesh again? Mout ka saudagar? :p Those who were at power in 1984 during India's two worst mass killings should probably patent that as their official party slogan.

For those more interested, check this & all the links within it:-
http://serious--fun.blogspot.com/2010/06/bhopal-case-some-ignored-facts.html

Hearing Veerappa Moily speak after the verdict was like hearing Pakistan government official speaking after 26/11. What a terrible lack of accountability politically to those who failed 100% in punishing the guilty or procuring a fair deal to the 10s of thousands of victims :angry: When politically it was Congress' fault or failures, it is always someone else's fault.. this time court's.

Note from Admin : Caution - graphic image. Members should use their discretion.
http://www.bhopal.net/blog_pr/archives/Fetus-with-head-abnormality.jpg

[sumeet]

Like everything else in India, truth and reason have fallen by the wayside as entities have acted solely out of their own selfish incentives: Politicians’ incentives for votes, money, and finding prominent scapegoats; Media’s incentive to pander to public, without having to do any actual work; and Judiciary’s incentive to avoid wrath of government and public by not make any critical decisions for decades.

Very well put ret2del.
You have summed it up well enough.
In the entire saga NOT one institution can stand up and hold its head held high.
One should not absolve the CRITICAL role of judiciary especially the supreme court with its CJI, Ahmadi, whose role now is under a scanner. He diluted the charges and the result is the tragically perverted judgement of 2 years imprisonment for nearly 20,000 deaths.
He completely ignored the expert committee, the varadarajan report which unambiguously nailed Union Carbide to be responsible at various levels and times to take sufficient and minimal safety measures and the report said the disaster was waiting to happen.
why did he choose to ignore this critical evidence of CBI chargesheet?
Trace what happens to his career, he is rewarded with plum post of judge of int' court of justice.
He becomes the life long president of the Bhopal Medical Trust set up with funds (1,500 crores), from settlement with Union carbide, happy coincidence, or smells of quid pro quo?
With out question even a banana republic would have cared more to its citizens if they had suffered the worst Industrial disaster in human history. If this does not prove every thing that is wrong with our system of governance nothing will.:(

[Desi]

There is no question that judiciary and bringing to justice has been abysmally slow. And there is no question that the suffering of people has been neglected. However the comment regarding that information is not known and that journalists should be investigating, all that has already happened in the past.

[QUOTE] http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu21le/uu21le0c.htm
At the beginning of 1993, distribution of compensation money was started. Union Carbide's original $470 million had accumulated considerable interest and now totalled $700 million. By March of that year, 700 victims had received $2 million. This included relatives of the dead, who received $3,200 per fatality (more for multiple bereavements in the same family). Those who suffered serious injuries received $3,000 each; people with minor injuries were to receive much less (Hazarika 1993).


This hospital is mandated to provide 8 years of free service to survivors
Bhopal Memorial Hospital
BHOPAL MEMORIAL HOSPITAL TRUST

There are accusations of mismanagement of funds and slow response.

There have been many books written, papers researching this, published and articles written.

http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3ABhopal%20Union%20Carbide%20Plant%20Disaster%5Cc%20Bhopal%5Cc%20India%5Cc%201984&page=1

[Desi]

Kirks,

I fail to see the purpose of posting gruesome pictures other than sensationalism. Thumbs down.