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The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to entertain pleas filed claiming that 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy survivors with lasting severe injuries and illnesses were wrongly classified under 'temporary disablement' and 'minor injury' and under-compensated for years.
A bench of Chief Justice of India BR Gavai and Justice Vinod Chandran gave Bhopal gas disaster victims' rights groups the liberty to approach the Madhya Pradesh High Court with their claim. It also asked the High Court to decide the case on its own merits. The petitioner's victims' groups, including Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha, sought directions to the Centre and the Madhya Pradesh government to take suitable steps to identify and compensate those who were under-compensated because of them having been misclassified as 'temporary disablement' or 'minor injury' under the provisions of the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster (Processing of Claims) Act, 1985 and the scheme. The advocates said a large number of people suffered from kidney failure and cancer due to the gas disaster and were being treated as minor injury cases. The Bhopal gas tragedy, touted as the world's worst industrial disaster, claimed the lives of several thousand people after a deadly gas leaked from the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant on the intervening night of December 2 and 3, 1984. The tragedy unfolded in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, when the highly dangerous and toxic gas, methyl isocyanate (MIC), escaped from the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) and resulted in the death of 5,295 human beings, injuries to almost 5,68,292 persons, besides loss of livestock and loss of property of almost 5,478 persons. (ANI)
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