There is stiff resistance to the latest US federal court order that neither Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) nor its former chairman Warren Anderson were liable for any pollution-linked claims by the victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster and the non-government organisations working here for the cause of the gas victims are determined to go in appeal against this order.
Reacting to the US district Court Judge John F. Keenan’s dismissal of the case on June 26, Rachna Dhingra of Bhopal Group for Information and Action said that is the fourth instance of dismissal. It had been dismissed three times earlier and reinstated at the behest of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, she pointed out adding, “We do intend to appeal the decision and believe that we shall have solid evidence that Union Carbide Corporation was in full control of the design of the waste management system, and directed the manner in which wastes were handled in the course of the plant’s operation. We believe that we will prevail at the appeals stage as we did the last three times when the same Judge Keenan rejected our plaint.”
Ms Dhingra said Justice Keenan had denied the gas victims a chance to secure compensation under American law in 1986. At that stage, he had agreed with Union Carbide’s argument that Indian courts were the appropriate forum to try the compensation case and had said that Union Carbide and Anderson would submit to India’s jurisdiction. It is a fact that in the criminal case in Bhopal, both Union Carbide and Warren Anderson remain absconders.
Ms Dhingra said, “Union Carbide and Warren Anderson are not out of the woods yet. In India, both entities are named accused in the criminal case, and both have been declared fugitives from justice for having failed to honour summons issued by the trial court.” Union Carbide is also named as a defendant in a public interest litigation in Madhya Pradesh high court where the petitioners are seeking remediation and compensation from UCC and Dow Chemical for contamination and clean-up, she pointed out.
Another prominent social activist Abdul Jabbar of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan said that the US Federal Court has overlooked the fact that UCC was holding 51.8 per cent shares in the Indian company that owned the Bhopal pesticide plant. In fact, he said, it was the multinational UCC that was responsible for erecting the solar evaporation pond (SEP), which has caused the maximum soil and ground water contamination.