“We will rip you apart” I wish Hon’ble Supreme Court of India had said this to Union Carbide, a company who murdered 25,000 people in Bhopal.
This is the untold story of the world’s worst industrial disaster till date.
Paid mainstream media & Paid influencers will never utter a word on how the judiciary failed the hopes of the citizens of Bhopal.
We all know that on the unfortunate night of December 2, 1984, methyl isocyanate (MIC) hazardous chemical leaked out from Union Carbide’s (UCIL’s) pesticide factory.
Estimates are it killed 25,000 people, partially disabled 1 lac people, and injured more than 5 lac people.
The Chernobyl disaster in Russia/Ukraine killed 50 people so you can imagine the scale of Bhopal’s disaster was 500x.
This leak was not a surprise as journalist Raj Kumar Keshwani raised enough alarms by writing many articles on irregularities at UCC in the newspapers (Rapat).
Keshwani’s literally warned authorities saying that the city stood on the edge of a volcano.
It’s unfortunate that such credible honest selfless journalists don’t get Padma awards but people who endorse pan-masala cancerous gutkas are awarded by our spineless government.
Union Carbide was a USA based company so many tried to get this case trailed in New York courts for better and fast justice.
The darling of MNCs and a man who never did anything but lip service for common man, Mr. Nani Palkhiwala sent an affidavit on behalf of UCC stating
“There is no doubt that the Indian judicial system can fairly and satisfactorily handle the Bhopal litigation”
Well sadly Nani boy was wrong as our Indian Courts awarded literally 0 mins of jail time in this disaster? Why so?
Well, the paid intellectuals and corrupt journalist would blatantly lie & misguide citizens stating that “laws didn’t exist” well lets see who benefited from the judgement.
For such a catastrophic disaster which killed & injured lakhs of people, affected the next generation with permanent disabilities and even wiped out many plants, animals in the city the initial compensation demanded from UCC was to the tune of US$3.3 billion.
It was a fair ask as UCC had an annual revenue of US$ 8bn in 1988.
Evil UCC who showed no sympathy, empathy to the victims was represented by Indian advocate Mr. Fali Nariman.
Well citizens of Bhopal were given an 85% discount and UCC settled for a meagre amount of US$ 470 million (Rs. 700 crore).
This settlement was led by the Chief Justice of India at that time Hon’ble CJI RS Pathak. The wordings of the settlement were:
“This settlement shall formally dispose UCC of all past, present and future claims, causes of action and civil and criminal proceedings (of any nature whatsoever pending) by all Indian citizens and all public and private entities with respect to all past, present and future deaths, personal injuries, health effects, compensation, losses, damages and civil and criminal complaints of any nature whatsoever”.
This judgment came in February 1989 and the disaster happened in 1984. Who is going to take the onus and responsibility of this criminal delay of 4 years?
CJI of India literally absolved UCC of all the charges.
Indians were shocked until 3 months later it was clear why the star kid CJI RS Pathak, who was a son of former VP India (Gopal Pathak) was so lenient on UCC as he got promoted and became a judge at International Court of Justice, Hague with support of US lobby.
UCC had an insurance cover of US$200m, so technically they just paid half the settlement amount from their own pockets.
The company had an annual revenue of US$ 8bn so UCC just were paid meagre 3% of its annual revenue.
The 1990 ICMR report acknowledged that 508,230 individuals evidenced small-airway obstruction that could lead to future morbidity and impair the capacity to work.
So, if we distribute the US$ 470m i.e. 715 crores among 5 lac victims the per head share is meagre Rs. 15,000.
Mr. Fali Nariman the Indian lawyer of UCC got Padma Award in 1991 and surprisingly his son Rohinton Nariman later became a judge in Supreme Court of India. Such is the sad situation in our country.
When lawyers and judges sold out their own country’s victims for their selfish gains and legal fees luckily, we had few citizens with integrity.
ISRO’s ex-chair Dr. Satish Dhawan & physicist Dr. Anil Sadgopal said India’s science community would fight this out of court Bhopal settlement in court, blaming a lack of conscience and bad science education for the sell-out.
Due to strong activism by people with integrity like Journalist Rajkumar Keswani and Dr. Anil Sadgopal, a petition was filed and the case was re-opened in Supreme court.
Public was furious, in the curative petition Supreme court said that future claims can be made by victims, but the
settlement holds true.
In 1996, Supreme Court Chief Justice, A M Ahmedi, watered down the charges against the accused from “Section 304 culpable homicide not amounting to murder” to “ Section 304A causing death due to negligence”.
Section 304 allows life imprisonment whereas as Section 304A allows maxium 2 years punishment. On what grounds Ahmadi allowed 304A and not 304, well read below to connect the dots.
CJI Ahmadi, heading a Supreme Court bench, released the shares so that the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC)
could raise money, as Bhopal court had frozen assets of the company.
CJI Ahmadi post-retirement, became ‘chairman for life’ of Bhopal Memorial Hospital founded by UCC whose books of
accounts are private.
Ahmadi was accused of misappropriating over Rs 100 crore of the hospital funds by the NGOs working among the gas victims.
A shocking and disgraceful act that came to light in 2008 was the illegal manner in which secret drug trials were conducted on gas-victims at BMHRC during 2004-2008
Massive irregularities, deaths happen under his chairmanship and hence Ahmadi resigned.
Meanwhile, the UCC Chairman Anderson was given bail in 1984. He went to USA and never came back.
The 7 Indian Employees were convicted in 2010 for “death due to negligence” and 2 years imprisonment and 1 lac Rs fine was imposed.
Well, these 7 employees, did not serve a minute in jail as they got an Instant Bail.
In 1997, Review petition were filed by the NGO Bhopal gas Peerit Sangharsh Samiti (Respected Abdul Jabbar) against the judgement of 1996 and this too was dismissed.
Even 2023 review petition for enhanced compensation was dismissed by 5 judge bench of the Supreme Court.
35 years, we saw multiple governments form different parties, 30K people died, 5 lac got injured
No one went in Jail and fine was meagre few thousand bucks per individual.
Mockery of Indian Government, Judiciary and Paid Media to bury this grave injustice!
I don’t beleive in shouting on problems but providing meaningful solutions as well…
Since 1850s 70% of Judges + Police + Public Prosecutors in the USA are directly elected by common voters and these judges can be recalled i.e. fired mid-term by voters via recall elections.
This makes judges, police & prosecutors accountable to the publice as they fear losing power due to citizens’ right to recall.
Also, in US/UK/China/Germany/Japan – the case is heard by citizens/voters and they have the power to decide the guilt and quantum of punishment, not the judges.
The jury is randomly chosen 12 citizens from the voter list and once served on Jury members don’t repeat for another 5 years.
Citizen’s Jury means the power to jail & fine lies with citizens class and not the ruling class.
So as a tribue to the 25000 dead Bhopal Gas Victims – We should focus on bringing right to recall judge law and jury court law in India via gazette notification.
Timestamp: September 2025
One Response
It’s break my heart. That’ Bhopal gas tragedy kills 500x as compared to Chernobyl.