Opposing a plea for retrial by three former employees of the Union Carbide factory, the Central Bureau of Investigation on Monday stated that acquitting those who had been convicted would amount to a “failure of justice”, reported The Indian Express.

The leak of methyl isocyanate and other toxic gases from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal on December 3, 1984, killed at least 4,000 persons, while over five lakh were exposed to the toxic gases. Government data suggests that there have been 15,000 deaths as a result of the disaster over the years.

On June 7, 2010, a trial court in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal held eight Indian employees of Union Carbide guilty under the Indian Penal Code section pertaining to causing death by negligence.

In 2011, three of those convicted – Kishore Kamdar, who was a vice-president of the Indian arm of Union Carbide, J Mukund, a works manager and SP Chowdhury, a production manager – submitted a petition seeking retrial in the matter.

They argued that the chargesheet against them was “malafide, bogus and unfounded”, The Times of India reported.

On Monday, the Central Bureau of Investigation opposed their plea before Principal District and Sessions judge Manoj Kumar Shrivastava in Bhopal.

“There would be ‘failure of justice’; not only by unjust conviction, but also by acquittal of the guilty, as a result of unjust failure to produce requisite evidence,” the agency told the court. “Of course, the rights of the accused have to be kept in mind and also safeguarded, but they should not be overemphasised to the extent of forgetting that the victims also have rights.”

The central probe agency also highlighted that the Supreme Court had in 1996 opposed an application by the accused persons, who claimed that the chargesheet in the case had errors, omission and irregularities, The Times of India reported.

Based on this, the trial court began hearing the case and framed charges in 1997, the probe agency noted.

It also highlighted that the men had pleaded guilty to the charges voluntarily, The Indian Express reported.

“The tragedy was of unprecedented nature and had continuing tragic and disastrous effects on human beings and animals,” the agency submitted. “This intervening night of 2nd and 3rd December 1984 is not an easy one to forget for India.”

The probe agency also argued that the convicted persons would have to show that they had “suffered some disability or detriment in respect of the protections available to them under the Indian criminal jurisprudence”, to allow the plea to be maintainable.

The matter will be heard next on October 6, The Times of India reported.

In 2019, the International Labour Organization had listed the Bhopal gas tragedy among the world’s major industrial accidents in the last century.

The first information report in the case alleged that highly toxic chemicals that escaped from tank 610 caused the “immediate deaths of thousands of human beings and animals and caused injury of health of lakhs of human beings”.

During the trial, none of the persons convicted said that the charges against them were wrong or that some other charge should be applied, Free Press Journal reported.

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