[Assam] Today, it was a judicial tragedy

[Chan Mahanta]

There are difference degrees to justice. Perhaps our democracy experts  
can explain why. Not that I am attempting
to diss democracy. But here there seems to be a catch. Something is  
amiss. What is it? Where is it?




On Jun 8, 2010, at 3:49 AM, uttam borthakur wrote:

> From Yahoo News:''
>
>
>
> Tue, Jun 8 05:18 AM
>
> Twenty-five years ago it was a gas tragedy, what happened today is a  
> judicial tragedy," said an angry Abdul Jabbar of the Bhopal Gas  
> Peedith Mahila Udyog Sangathan after the court verdict on Monday.  
> Jabbar's anger resonated across survivors and organisations working  
> for their rights.
> One of the few activists to have campaigned for the survivors from  
> the beginning and the man whose petition led to the revival of  
> criminal proceedings which had been dropped earlier, Jabbar said the  
> verdict would be challenged in an upper court. He said the judgment  
> was a mockery of justice as it not only came late but also let the  
> main accused go scot-free. "We would have been satisfied only if the  
> main accused had been hanged."
> There were others who felt the verdict should have set an example  
> for multinationals and warned them that they could not play with  
> lives of poor people and get away with it. "The verdict will only  
> serve to embolden companies to compromise on safety and play with  
> the lives of the poor," said Satinath Sarangi of Bhopal Group for  
> Action and Information. He said the offences under which the accused  
> were charged were similar to those invoked in case of a traffic  
> accident.
> Another activist, Balkrishna Namdeo, alleged that the CBI had kept  
> only the interest of the multinational in mind while arguing the  
> case. Hamida Bi, one of the survivors, alleged that the government  
> and the CBI had sold out to the company. "People have been hanged  
> for causing just one or two deaths. Here thousands lost lives and in  
> the 26th year of the tragedy all that the accused got was two  
> years," she said, adding that along with other victims she would  
> fight for justice till the very end.
> Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said though the court gave what  
> was possible, the quantum of punishment to the accused in such a  
> huge disaster was not enough.
> Earlier in the day, survivors carrying posters and shouting slogans  
> turned up on the premises of the Chief Judicial Magistrate's court  
> in spite of prohibitory orders since Sunday evening. Officials of  
> Union Carbide India Limited, the Indian subsidiary of Union Carbide  
> Corporation, were brought to the courtroom much before proceedings  
> began at 11 am.
> Trouble began with the survivors and activists trying to push their  
> way into the courtroom. Jabbar demanded to know why was he being  
> kept out of a trial that he was instrumental in starting. However,  
> they were kept out and so were mediapersons on orders of the  
> magistrate.
> The survivors also said the Union government had not showed any real  
> intention of bringing main accused Warren Anderson to justice by  
> failing to serve warrants on him and for failing to seek his  
> extradition. Their anger against the government and the judiciary  
> also stemmed from the monetary settlement of 1989, and the apex  
> court's dilution of the charge against the accused from culpable  
> homicide to the one of death due to negligence.
>
> /*YAHOO.EU.Messenger = new Messenger();
> var sStoryHeadline="%26#39;Today, it was a judicial tragedy 
> %26#39;"+'%0A';
> var sStoryLink="http://in.news.yahoo.com/48/20100608/804/tnl-today-it-was-a-judicial-tragedy_1.html 
> "+'%0A';
> var sDefaultMsg = "Check out this story on Yahoo! News:"+'%0A';
> if (document.all) { sStoryHeadline = escape(sStoryHeadline); }
> */
>
>
>
>
> Uttam Kumar Borthakur
>
> _______________________________________________
> assam mailing list
> assam at assamnet.org
> http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org