Supreme Court has dismissed the government’s request to give additional compensation of more than Rs. 78.4 billion (almost 900 million euros) to the victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.
The five judges of the court have determined that the issue of compensation »cannot be restated three decades after the settlement», which was reached between Union Carbide and the Indian government itself in 1989, whereby the company compensated 470 million euros to the victims, whose claim amounted to 3 billion euros, as reported by ‘The Indian Express’.
In addition, Union Carbide handed over to the Indian Government all the responsibility for the clean-up of the plant, and disengaged itself from the expulsion of the gas, the blame for which fell on the plant operators.
The court has also argued that the compensation proved to have been »more than sufficient» to repair the damages caused, and has blamed the Government of India for not having taken out the corresponding insurance policies, for which it has ruled to use 50 million rupees — some 560,000 euros — from the Reserve Bank of India to satisfy the outstanding claims.
The catastrophe, described as one of the biggest environmental disasters, occurred on December 2, 1984 at the U.S. chemical company Union Carbide’s plant in Bhopal, central India, and involved the accidental release of cyanide gas into the air.
»The immediate impact was devastating,» according to Amnesty International. Between 7,000 and 10,000 people died within three days», according to data from the NGO, which puts the number of people affected to date at more than 570,000, taking into account not only the victims of the catastrophe, but also those of the contamination of the land in previous years, as denounced by the activists.
To date, the accident has left some 25,000 dead, according to activists – some 3,700 according to the Indian government – and after-effects among a population that is demanding justice, almost four decades later.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
