Bail for Union Carbide chief challenged

NK SINGH

Bhopal: A local lawyer has moved the court seeking cancellation of the absolute bail granted to Mr. Warren Ander son, chairman of the Union Carbide Corporation, whose Bhopal pesticide plant killed over 2,000 persons last December.

Mr. Anderson, who was arrested here in a dramatic manner on December 7 on several charges including the non-bailable Section 304 IPC (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), was released in an even more dramatic manner and later secretly whisked away to Delhi in a state aircraft.

The local lawyer, Mr. Quamerud-din Quamer, has contended in his petition to the district and sessions judge of Bhopal, Mr. V. S. Yadav, that the police had neither authority nor jurisdiction to release an accused involved in a heinous crime of mass slaughter.

If Mr. Quamer's petition succeeds, it may lead to several complications, including diplomatic problems. The United States Government had not taken kindly to the arrest of the head of one of its most powerful multinational giants. Can the Indian court summon Mr. Anderson to Bhopal to face trial for culpable homicide not amounting to murder?

When the case came up for hearing in the court of Mr. Yadav on Wednesday, the Madhya Pradesh Government pleaded for more time to file its reply. The court granted time to additional government pleader Abdul Shakur and the case will be taken up now on May 3.

The petitioner has argued that in releasing Mr. Anderson without producing him in a court of law the police had not fulfilled the requirements of Sub-section 2 and 3 of Section 437 of Code of Criminal Procedure. Even the case diary maintained by the then investigating officer of Hanumanganj police station was not referred to before releasing Mr. Anderson, the petition says.

Mr. Quamer has pleaded that the bail granted to Mr. Anderson is liable to be cancelled and he should be brought back to India to face the trial, investigation of which has since been undertaken by the CBI. Mr. Anderson was arrested along with the Union Carbide India Limited chairman Keshum Mahindra and managing director Vijay Gokhale. Mr. Mahindra and Mr. Gokhale were also subsequently released on bails granted by the Madhya Pradesh High Court. Five other officials of Union Carbide's Bhopal plant were released on interim bail on the application of the State Government on December 15 when the authorities required their help in disposing of the remaining dreaded methyl isocyanate (MIC) chemical.

The district and sessions judge on Tuesday rejected their application for making the interim bail absolute. The application had said that absolute bail should be given because the accused were suffering from ill-health caused by mental strain.

The judge also rejected the plea of Mr. Oyaeruddin Quamer, who had intervened on behalf of the gas- affected people, to cancel the interim bail granted to the accused.

April 25, 1985

Indian Express