BHOPAL: “They are queuing at the waiting lounge of heaven, waiting for their call. Do we want to punish them or give them passage to the heaven?,” this is how prominent lawyer
Ram Jethmalani had put his case while arguing on behalf of the convicts in
Bhopal gas tragedy case before the apex court when CBI had filed a curative petition against them for enhancement of charges against them following trial court verdict in 2010 in which they were let off with two years of suspended sentence on charges of criminal negligence for a disaster.
Jethamalani was obviously referring to old age of the convicts and the fact that the trial court verdict had come after 26 years of the disaster and if the curative petition is conceded and a retrial is ordered, none of them may survive by the time a retrial is completed, said an eyewitness to the proceedings of the Supreme Court during hearing of the curative petition, which was dismissed by the apex court in 2011.
After the curative petition was dismissed by the Supreme Court, hearing on the appeal pending in the court of district & sessions judge Bhopal began and local lawyer for the convicts in the case, Ajay Gupta, informed the court during the last hearing on October 11, 2021, that one of the accused, K V Shetty, who was plant superintendent in the Union Carbide factory has passed away.
Another accused R B Roychowdhary, who was assistant works manager in the factory, had died in 1998 during trial itself and was awarded sentence posthumously. While informing about Shetty's death, he didn't forget to mention that non-executive chairman of the Union Carbide India Ltd. Keshub Mahindra celebrated his 98th birthday only last week.
Among the 8 Indian officials of the Union Carbide India Ltd (UCIL), who stood trial in the case, Mahindra was an industrialist and rest of them professionals working for the company in different capacities. Mahindra is based in Mumbai as also majority of the co-convicts in the case and their average is 80 years or more. S I Qureshi, who was a plant operator in the factory-,and the only one who belongs to Bhopal, is 64 years of age and he, too, remains so ill that last time when he appeared in the court, he was brought on a stretcher.
Among other accused, Vijay Gokhale was managing director of the company and operated from Mumbai. He still lives in Mumbai and is suffering from cancer. He is 85.
Kishore Kamdar, who was vice president in the company and was also based in Mumbai, is 90 years of age and lives in an old age home. Factory manager J Mukund, is 81 years of age and lives in his native town Coonoor in Karnataka. S P Choudhary, assistant works manager in the plant, is 70 and lives in Mumbai.
When Gupta was asked whether a case involving deaths of thousands of people and injuries to many more should drag on for 37 years and it's still at the first stage of appeal said "No. It should not happen and not only survivors of the gas disaster but those accused in the case are also waiting for justice because it was an accident and none of them had played any role in the disaster."
On the other hand, co-convener of Bhopal Group for Information & Action (BGIA), which has been allowed by the court to assist the prosecution agency CBI in the case, in an angry reaction after receiving the news of Shetty's death said "Our premier investigating agency has shown that it neither has the courage nor the competence to go after "killer" of Bhopal.
First Anderson (the then chairman of Union Carbide Corporation, who couldn't be brought for trial to India) died a free man. UCC absconded and CBI did nothing. For the last 10 years this case continues in the sessions court and CBI has never found time to put an end to delay tactics of UCIL and its convicted officials. Not a single UCIL official has served a single day behind bars, so far."
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