Bhopal gas tragedy: Centre’s curative petition under process

The deadline of July 15 set by the Group of Ministers (GoM) to file a curative petition challenging the Supreme Court’s order of 1996 in the Bhopal gas tragedy may have been missed. But the office of attorney general GE Vahanvati asserted that scrutinising the voluminous files has been completed.  “It is in the process,” an official said.

Vahanvati’s office told DNA that the process includes consultations on various sections of the laws to be applied in the case, and how a wrong done 15 years ago be undone in a lawful manner.

The GoM, which held a series of meetings last month, decided that the government should file a plea against the judgment handed down by a bench headed by then chief justice of India AH Ahmadi in 1996.

The GoM was set up after a public outcry over a Bhopal magistrate’s verdict on June 7 that sentenced the guilty men to just two years in prison. The guilty men were promptly freed on bail.

The mild conviction was an outcome of the apex court’s judgment of 1996, in which, the bench had watered down the charges against the accused from that of culpable homicide not amounting to murder (Section 304-II of the Indian Penal Code) to criminal negligence (Section 304A of the IPC). While the former carries a penalty of 10 years imprisonment, the latter carries a sentence of just two years. The curative petition will seek re-examination of this verdict.

Explaining the delay, sources informed that since many files have to be brought from Bhopal and certain documents were required to strengthen the case, the process took extra time. The petition will also ask the court to enhance the compensation amount, which was settled upon at US $470 million in an out-of-court deal between the government of India and UCC in 1989.