At a hearing held on March 25 in a criminal appeal filed by Union Carbide India Limited [UCIL] and its officials convicted in the Bhopal gas disaster of 1984 against their order of conviction, the District Judge of Bhopal has granted another date for hearing to Union Carbide and its convicted officials to present their final arguments from April 25-29 from 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and has also ordered to list the matter for final judgment on May 24.
Bhopal gas disaster no arguments on the merit of the appeal have taken place at the court of District Judges since August 2021 due to the delay tactics employed by UCIL and its convicted employees. The prosecution agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI], in its reply to an application filed on March 25, 2022, has stated that “the instant criminal appeal is pending before this Hon’ble Court since 2010 and the accused applicant is playing all tactics to derail the due process of law and causing inordinate delay in the administration of justice by filing such petition.” There is no order of any higher courts which stops this court from hearing this appeal.
While this criminal appeal has continued for more than 11 years, two convicted officials (K.V. Shetty and Vijay Gokhale) have already died as free men, without paying for their crimes, and the rest of the convicted officials don’t even show up for hearing dates”, said Rachna Dhingra of the NGO Bhopal Group for Information and Action.
