Bhopal tragedy: Apex court comments on its own verdict

Wednesday April 20, 2011 07:44:58 PM, IANS

New Delhi: The Supreme Court normally does not pass orders directing the framing of charges against accused under a specific provision of law, the apex court observed Wednesday while hearing a petition related to the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy case.

The constitution bench comprising Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia, Justice Altamas Kabir, Justice R.V. Raveendran, Justice B. Sudershan Reddy and Justice Aftab Alam said this while referring to its (apex court) Sep 13, 1996 verdict watering down the charges against seven accused.

The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed a plea in the apex court to restore against the accused, including the then Union Carbide India Limited chairman Keshub Mahindra, the stringent charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, punishable with a maximum jail term of 10 years.

After the charges against the accused were diluted by the apex court in 1996, they were convicted by a Bhopal court last year under the less stringent provision of causing death due to negligence, carrying a maximum punishment of two years' jail.

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Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and his wife Mrs Gursharan Kaur in a procession for laying wreath ceremony at Monument of the Defenders of Motherland, at Astana, in Kazakhstan on April 16, 2011.

(Photo: Shivraj)