Indian court considers Bhopal case appeals

Abstract

The Indian elections now over, India's Supreme Court has begun deciding on the raft of objections to last year's settlement of the Bhopal disaster case. Last February, Union Carbide agreed to the court's order to pay $470 million in compensation for the thousands of deaths and injuries caused in December 1984 by the methyl isocyanate leak from its carbamate pesticide plant in that central Indian city. But the public, political, and professional outcry at the Valentine's Day settlement was so intense that a flustered court said it would consider many of the appeals filed against its decision. Although Carbide immediately deposited the money in the Indian Reserve Bank, none of it has been distributed pending resolution of the appeals. On Dec. 22, newly appointed chief justice Sabyasachi Mukherji took the first action by upholding the constitutionality of the Bhopal Claims Act, which gave the government of India the right to represent the ...