Though all compensation related litigation in the Bhopal gas tragedy were shifted to India after the US Supreme Court had declined to entertain appeal against lower federal court on India’s claim of $3 billions from the Union Carbide, a damage suit is still pending before a New York appellate court.
The case titled Sahu vs Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) is pending before second circuit court of appeal in New York with multiple prayers, including damages for personal injury, medical monitoring and cleaning up of drinking water supplies for residential areas around the company’s closed plant in Bhopal.
The suit was filed by Indian lawyer Charan Lal Sahu in 2004 following media reports that the abandoned UCC plant was a “sitting time bomb” causing long term irreparable damage to the environment of Bhopal and contaminating the soil and water resources, including the groundwater.
Mr Sahu in his suit has stated that people have “suffered serious” health problems due to contamination of soil and water in the area and UCC, which now has been named as Dow Chemicals, was liable to “clean up” the area and remove all toxic material from the plant.
A lower US court, where the suit was originally filed by Mr Sahu, had dismissed it in 2007 but the second circuit court of appeal was of the view that the trial judge had not given the plaintiff (Sahu) “enough notice” to respond to the UCC bid to get the case dismissed.
Mr Sahu had filed the suit after there was a long delay in disbursement of the compensation amount paid in the out-of-court settlement by the UCC with the Indian government.