India reopens Bhopal toxic gas leak case

India's supreme court has reopened the Bhopal toxic gas leak case in response to a government petition seeking harsher punishment for officials from Union Carbide, the chemical company responsible. In a decision that delighted the long-running campaign for justice by the survivors of the 1984 gas disaster, India's highest court today agreed to review its earlier decision that reduced the crime from one of "culpable homicide" to "a rash and negligent act". Because of the lighter charges, seven Union Carbide officials received just two-year prison sentences when the court case finally concluded in June this year – 25 years after the accident, which the government says killed around 3,500 people. Activists say at least 22,000 died in the immediate aftermath and the following years. The sentences led to a national outcry, forcing Delhi to tell the federal police, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), to ask the court for more stringent charges with punishment of up to 10 years in jail. "For the first time after 26 years of struggle and suffering, suddenly we see a ray of hope thanks to the supreme court decision," Balkrishna Namdeo, a gas leak victim, said on television from Bhopal. "Now there is hope that we will get justice." However, former Union Carbide chairman Keshub Mahindra and the six other senior officials will be given an opportunity to try to convince the three judges that they should not face more serious charges before a final decision is issued. Because of the length of time taken for the existing sentences to be handed down, there is concern among survivors that they might face many more years of legal wrangling. Earlier this month another bench of the supreme court likened the delay to the fictional Jarndyce v Jarndyce case in Charles Dickens' Bleak House. "In that case the matter dragged on for 100 years; several generations had died," the judges said. "The descendants, the advocates and the judges were not aware what the case was about, but they were fighting it. India is also becoming like that. Cases keep dragging." By the time the Bhopal case is decided, the judges added, "the victims will all be dead". CBI counsel Devadutt Kamat said once the supreme court decided on the petition it could issue orders for an "expeditious hearing". Kamat also said the demand for higher compensation for Bhopal's victims was a separate issue that was being examined by the ministry of chemicals. An Amnesty study showed that 7,000 people perished within days of the release of methyl isocyanate gas at the pesticide plant on 3 December 1984, and a further 15,000 died later from exposure to the gas. Countless others suffered lifelong damage to their health.