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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | State's silence helped Carbide get clean chit

State's silence helped Carbide get clean chit

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published Published on Aug 3, 2014   modified Modified on Aug 3, 2014
-The Times of India


BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh government sat on summons by a New York court for seven months, allowing it to deliver a deathblow to Bhopal gas victims, months before the 30th anniversary of the tragedy. The US court, on Thursday, ruled that Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) cannot be sued for contamination from toxic waste in its abandoned chemical plant in Bhopal.

The legal suit was pending with the federal district court of the southern district of New York against UCC, seeking environmental remediation or clean-up of the Bhopal plant site, including solar evaporation ponds and health monitoring of victims residing in the plant's hinterland.

In November last year, NGO EarthRights International on behalf of 17 plaintiffs amended the complaint by making the Madhya Pradesh government a party in the case. The state government in turn was served summons in January this year. However, the government failed to respond.

Speaking to TOI, law secretary, RK Verma, said, "the department of gas relief and rehabilitation deals with the issue so we passed on the court summon to them."

Principal secretary, gas relief and rehabilitation, Praveer Krishn, said "We can't have a different stand. We share our opinion with the government of India. I can't comment on an international adjudication. I am not authorized." Highly-placed sources said the state bureaucracy kept passing the buck and then the matter was silently buried in government files which gathered dust in the secretariat. PTI reports, US district Judge John Kennan said in his 45-page ruling that "the only relief plaintiffs seek from Madhya Pradesh is an injunction directing them to cooperate in clean-up of the site ordered by this court against UCC."

"Because, I conclude there's no basis to hold UCC liable for plaintiffs' damage, there will be no court-ordered clean-up and thus no basis for enjoining Madhya Pradesh. It is therefore appropriate to enter judgment in favour of the state (in) the amended complaint," the judge said.

In 2010, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced constitution of one-member commission to probe all aspects of the tragedy in the Assembly amid thumping of desks. He had reaffirmed state government's "commitment" to ensure justice to victims.

On August 26, 2007, he had said "?there is a litigation going on in America, I would like the Centre to permit us to be an intervener in the case. If the Centre doesn't fight, we are ready to fight the case for on behalf of the victims." However, the CM soon forgot about the issue. Later, when the case was amended by plaintiffs and the state was made a party, there was no need for permission from the Centre. Yet the government slept on summons issued from the US court in a huge betrayal to the cause of justice for gas victims.


The Times of India, 2 August, 2014, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/States-silence-helped-Carbide-get-clean-chit/articleshow/39458715.cms


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