Nearly 50 women survivors of the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984 protested outside the office of Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, demanding that the government not withdraw its curative petition seeking enhanced compensation.
The apprehensions arose as the lawyer for Union Carbide told the Supreme Court on September 20, 2022, that if the government decided to withdraw its curative petition, then the co-petitioners’ plea would also be infructuous, after which the Solicitor General said that there were no instructions from the government. The court then ordered the Solicitor General to obtain instructions on the government’s stand on the curative petition and deferred the matter till October 11.
However, a senior official from the Minister’s office and a Joint Secretary-level official in the Ministry of Chemical and Fertilizers assured the protesters that the government didn’t intend to withdraw the curative petition, according to Rachna Dhingra, of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action - one of the survivors’ organisations.
The curative plea filed by the UPA government in December 2010 sought additional funds of over ₹97 billion, over and above the $470 million already paid by Union Carbide. The survivors also say that this figure is grossly inadequate and the government has not used the correct figures of deaths and injuries and has ignored hospital records as well as findings of the Indian Council of Medical Research.
“Among the loudest voices criticising the UPA government in 2010 over Bhopal were the leaders of the current government, but since assuming power they are nowhere to be seen. Unless the figures of death and extent of injury are corrected immediately, the curative petition will heap more injustice on the Bhopal survivors,’ said Nawab Khan of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha.
