Remove Bhopal waste in six months: SC

The Supreme Court on Thursday gave six months to the central and the Madhya Pradesh governments to dispose of toxic waste lying in and around the abandoned Union Carbide factory in Bhopal for the past 28 years.

A gas leak from the factory Dec 2-3, 1984, killed thousands of people in the world’s worst industrial disaster.

“The disposal should be strictly in a scientific manner which may cause no further damage to human health and environment in Bhopal,” the court said in 19 orders-cum-directions.

In a detailed order on Thursday, the top court transferred all the pending law suits filed by the organisations or individuals for relief to the Madhya Pradesh High Court and also asked the Monitoring Committee for Medical Rehabilitation to operate from Bhopal and engage itself with the unfinished task of relief and rehabilitation of the victims.

Disposing of a PIL filed by an NGO, Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila Udyog Sangathan in 1998, a bench directed the state and Central hospitals to entertain gas victims.