NEW DELHI, June 8 � Government today battled allegations that the Narasimha Rao regime had not pursued the extradition of former Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson and asserted that the Bhopal gas tragedy case was still open and he can be brought here for trial, reports PTI.
In the context of outrage over the �light� punishment handed out by the Bhopal court verdict yesterday, former Supreme Court Chief Justice A H Ahmadi, who was heading the Bench that turned down CBI�s case for the accused to be tried under stringent provisions, justified his 1996 judgement saying in criminal law there was no vicarious responsibility.
Putting up a brave front, Law Minister M Veerappa Moily said the case against Anderson was not over and he can be brought here and tried.
The Minister was responding to questions from reporters on the contention made by a former CBI joint director, who was handling the probe in 1994-95, that the External Affairs Ministry (MEA) had written to the investigating agency asking it not to pursue Anderson�s extradition.
Moily dismissed the claim of B R Lall as an irresponsible statement. �After retirement, people try to become martyrs by making such statements�, he retorted.
Union Minister Salman Khurshid, who was a junior minister during that period, also rejected Lall�s claim, saying the CBI was not under the MEA.
MEA sources said there have been repeated requests for Anderson�s extradition but these were not accepted by the US on the ground that he is not personally culpable.
�In 2003, a request for extradition of Anderson was made to the American side under the India-US bilateral extradition treaty. This request has already been reiterated on more than one occasion�, the sources said.
Nearly 26 years after world�s worst industrial disaster left over 15,000 dead, former Union Carbide India Chairman Keshub Mahindra and six others were yesterday sentenced to two years imprisonment by a Bhopal court following which they secured bail.
The outcome of the case came under attack from civil rights activists and political parties who felt the quantum of punishment was too light when compared to the magnitude of the trgedy.
89-year-old Anderson, the then Chairman of Union Carbide Corporation of USA, who lives in the United States, left the country soon after the tragedy and was declared an absconder. There was no word about him in the judgement of the Bhopal court.
BJP slammed the then Congress government for attempting to �pressurise� the CBI not to press for Anderson�s extradition.
�No. Legally and technically, we can�t say it (the case against Anderson) is over. The case against him is still on...He can be procured, he can still be tried,� Moily told PTI.
He said the name of Anderson, who left the country soon after the tragedy struck Bhopal on the intervening night of December 3-4, 1984, figured in the charge sheet filed by the CBI in the case.
The Minister declined to comment on being asked whether government was making or would make efforts to extradite Anderson.
�I don�t know whether the central government can intervene at this stage,� he said on whether the Centre could do something in a case where the justice came too late and the quantum of punishment was too little.
CBI had filed a charge sheet under Section 304 (II) of the IPC(culpable homicide not amounting to murder) under which the maximum punishment is 10 years.
Adding a new twist in the case, Lall, who has retired from CBI, said, �I was told by the Ministry of External Affairs officials not to follow the extradition of Warren Anderson, which affected the CBI probe.�
Justice Ahmadi said it was unfortunate that Anderson was allowed to leave the country as he was the principal offender.
Defending his judgement pronounced in 1996, he asked if anything was wrong with it, why didn�t anyone seek a review. �I don�t think the view I took then was wrong,� he said.
Terming yesterday�s judgement as �very unsatisfactory,� Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said, �It is a matter of deep anguish that it has taken such a long time for the verdict to come out.�
�It is clearly very unsatisfactory from every point of view and the furore over it is understandable,� he said.