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Breaking news: Supreme Court to deliver Bhopal gas disaster judgment in 2084
Yesterday, a local court in Bhopal convicted the 7 accused in the Bhopal gas tragedy case, sent them to jail for 2 years and later gave them bail.
In response to a question at a press briefing on whether there was a formal extradition request for Warren Anderson (the then CEO of Union Carbide), the USA's Department of State said
Well, as you say, Goyal, this tragedy happened 26 years ago, and it was a terrible tragedy, one of the worst industrial accidents in human history, and we certainly hope that the verdict brings some closure to the families of the victims of this tragedy.In other words, we don't give a damn about what you want.
But just as we were talking about earlier, last week, we had a strategic dialogue with India. Our countries are closely connected. Our economies are increasingly closely connected. So I certainly would hope that this particular case does not inhibit – or the continuing expansion of economic, cultural, and political ties between our two countries. And I have – we fully expect that this will not be the case.
This then presented a wonderful opportunity for the Indian media to go berserk, pointing out 'double standards' by the USA government when it came to the British Petroleum oil spill and the Bhopal gas tragedy.
So, while British Petroleum will be forced to pay up billions of dollars in penalties for the damage caused to the environment & businesses, victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy would get something like Rs. 50,000 each in addition to the pleasure of living with the after-effects of the gas poisoning.
Yet, they're missing a major point.
The US is stalling or denying requests for Warren Anderson's extradition because it wants to protect it's citizen from criminal proceedings in a different jurisdiction.
In contrast, India's governments settled for a compensation of USD 470 million, around 14% of the original claim of USD 3.3 billion. Warren Anderson was let off on bail, and there's no chance he's going to enjoy a holiday at Agra (except in disguise perhaps). It is unknown how many palms (belonging to politicians, investigators, policemen & bureaucrats) were greased.
India's legal system watered down the charges from culpable homicide to criminal negligence. It seems like 'Tort law' is a foreign concept for the Indian judicial system.
It took over a quarter-of-a-century to deliver a verdict, in a local court at that! There's no doubt that both parties will appeal.
I expect that the appeal will reach the Supreme Court by 2050, and a final judgment will be delivered close to midnight on 2 December 2084, commemorating the centenary of the disaster.
When our governments and courts can't protect our citizens, why should we complain if other governments stand up for their citizens, regardless of whether the accused is at fault or not?
Labels: accident, bhopal, farce, india, judgement, legal, supreme court
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Ramalinga Raju for Warren Anderson?
Shortly after the former Satyam founder-chairman Ramalinga Raju admitted to cooking the books to the tune of over Rs. 7000 crores, class action suits were filed in the USA. A class action suit is sort of like a PIL, except that PILs in India can be filed only against state or public bodies while class action suits can be filed against everyone, including private companies and individuals. In addition, someone filing a class action suit must necessarily have suffered financial/legal injury. As a result, it could be likely that Ramalinga Raju will have to face trial in US courts. I guess that's part of being a listed company on US stock exchanges.
I'm all for him being trialled in US courts provided that in exchange, the Indian government gets the new US government to extradite Warren Anderson to face charges in India.
Warren Anderson who? Warren Anderson was chairman of Union Carbide when the pesticide factory leaked Methyl Isocyanate in Bhopal nearly a quarter of a century ago. He currently lives in Long Island, New York.
Labels: accident, accounting, bhopal, india, satyam, scam
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To me, it seems like Bhopal 1984 is getting worldwide attention now, 20 years too late. When you do a search for a city's name, typically you expect to see results related to tourism/events happening there. Not so for Bhopal.
The US continues to not care about the victims. Union Carbide claims that all claims have been settled 15 years ago and that it has worked at providing aid to the victims.
Union Carbide agreed to a $470 mn out-of-court settlement with the Indian government in 1989. The Indian government paid around half of that amount, $230 mn, between 1989 and 1998. The rest was to be used to clean up and provide aid to existing residents. The survivors challenged the plan and they won. The government has begun distributing $327 mn [including interest accrued] to the survivors & families of victims.
This balance figure of $327 million sounds like an awesomely huge amount. But it is frankly a paltry sum. This $327 million goes to approximately 6 lakh people who were victims of the tragedy. At an exchange rate of around Rs. 45 to the dollar, this works out to just over Rs. 25,000 to each of those victims/survivors/next-of-kin of victims. Add in the earlier amount of Rs. 25,000 given till 1998 and this means the victims of the world's worst ever industrial disaster got a compensation of Rs. 50,000 each. Compare this to how Indian Railways compensates accident victims.
Amnesty International says that the survivors still await just compensation. GreenPeace has a survivor's account of what happened.
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The US administrative department has turned down India's request for the extradition of Warren Anderson, who was CEO of Union Carbide when the Bhopal gas disaster took place.
Perhaps killing thousands of people makes you a terrorist only when you use airplanes or weapons of mass destruction.
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