 Welcome to NewsClick. It's 35 years since the Bhopal gas tragedy. We have with us Mr. Indi Jayaprakash. We're going to discuss what has happened to the case, the victims, the compensation they were supposed to get. In fact, the Indian government is not even, the Indian public is not sure how many people were actually seriously injured, how many died in that tragedy. Mr. Jayaprakash is with the BGP SSS and with the Delhi Science Forum. Welcome to NewsClick, sir. Please tell us, what has happened in the case since the last time we spoke in 2014? What is the Supreme Court doing right now? What is the status of the victims? What kind of compensation did they get? Before we begin, I would like to pay homage to Abdul Jabbar Khan. We've been fighting the, I mean, he's been fighting the case for the victims for the last 35 years. And we've been together for the, I mean, I've been working with him for the last 30 years. And unfortunately on 14th November of this year, he passed away under tragic circumstances because he was a victim, gas victim. And because he could not get proper medical treatment, he actually passed away in a private hospital. Because the ghastly hospitals did not have the means to treat him. That's the state of healthcare. And he's been fighting for the victims for the last 35 years. And he learned the process of the law himself over this period in order to help. I mean, he was actively campaigning for the cause of the mobile gas victims. Coming back to your point, you see, the settlement took place on 14th, 15th February 1989. At that time, the base of the settlement was that only 1,5,000 gas victims there, including 3,000 dead. That was the base of the settlement of 470 million, which was then about 705 crores. But subsequently after adjudicating all the claims, which was about 1 million claims by the time they started processing the claims, which took about 12 years. And in 2004, the government, the Union of India had to admit before the Supreme Court that the magnitude of the disaster was actually five times greater. Because after adjudicating all the claims, the government said that the total number of victims were actually 5,73,000. Right. How did it come to be that you grossly underestimated the victims? How did that happen? The figure of 1,5,000 was a totally fictitious figure because they had no basis to come around. Because they had not assessed the. At that time, there were 6,000,000 claims. And only a portion of that claims had been adjudicated. So they had no means of quantifying this figure of 1,5,000. It was a totally fictitious figure. And so subsequently, because even when, even while assessing the going through the revision petition which we had filed, the courts refused to admit it. I mean, said that we have not been able to successfully tell in the court that the magnitude was actually far greater. But the court also said that if we can prove that the number of victims are actually greater, that they would be willing to reopen the case. That was the assurance that the courts gave us on 4th May 1989. So on that basis, we filed a petition again in 2004 before the Supreme Court. But again, the Supreme Court just rejected that application. But we were given the option of going back before the Welfare Commission of Bhopal to take up this case. But the Welfare Commission also rejected our petition. And then the petition again went back to the, we filed an appeal in the High Court. The High Court rejected it. Then we came back to the Supreme Court in 2010 by filing a special leave petition which the court admitted. But unfortunately the case has been pending for the court for the last nine years. It's nine years since. In nine years. Because soon after we filed our special leave petition, the Government of India also filed a curative petition opposing the settlement. And claiming an amount of 7700 crores, which is practically 10 times more than the settlement. So what was the ground on which the... Because the Government of India finally admitted because the magnitude of the disaster was actually five times greater than at the time of the settlement. So one of the biggest questions then arises that who is going to pay for all the costs that arise out of this tragedy? No, even the Government of India said that the cost, the compensation to be paid by Dow chemicals, which is the current owners of Union Carbide Corporation. So that's the status. But our position is that the Government of India must pay off this money now and recover it from Dow chemicals. Do you think that is going to happen in the near future? It can happen. But the fact is that the matter has not been taken up by the Supreme Court. Because it has to be dealt by a constitution bench. And the bench has not been constituted so far. Is there a plea pending that they should be constituted? Because even Justice Gagowi in January 2019 said he would take up the case in April 2019. But that never happened. What exactly then is the status of the victims? Those who sought health treatment and those who sought compensation. How much did they actually end up getting? Apparently we had filed a petition in 1998 seeking better health facilities for gas victims. And that petition was, the court gave us a favourable ruling after 14 years in 2012. Said that there should be proper medical care for gas victims, etc. And the court directed the High Court to ensure the execution of the order passed on 9th August 2012. Unfortunately that matter is also pending for the High Court. And Jabbar was one of the petitions in that case. And himself is not in there today. There always is a question that the government is supposed to issue a certain kind of identity and proof of the kind of treatment that the victims are getting. Why is that necessary? No, this has been one of our demands that the health condition should be properly monitored. So that we have said that all the health records should be computerized and each gas victim should be given a health card with complete information on his or her health status. But that has not happened so far. Meaning that the treatment plan should be clearly laid out. And the other thing is there is no protocol for treating each kind of it. What is provided is symptomatic treatment. Even till today. Even today. Meaning that what was being done on the night of the tragedy is still carrying on being done. See earlier what should happen is because there are a number of health facilities, nearly 19 hospitals and clinics. A victim used to go to one hospital one day, take medicines from there. The next day the same victim would go to another clinic or hospital and take more medicines. So there was no record of what the victim was consuming. So there was many cases over medication. Why were they seeking over medication? Because the medicines they were getting, not curing them. Another hospital. They were choosing the remedy somewhere. So we said this is ridiculous. If they were properly monitoring, this would not have happened. Because they could try to keep records of what treatment was being given to a particular victim. Also is this necessary? Is this kind of a record necessary in order to ascertain the extent of the injury? Of course. Because this record would also prove the degree of injury. So the one positive aspect of starting the process of computerization is that today we have recorded that 1,70,000 victims have been regularly visiting hospitals for the last 35 years. This record is there from 2000, the last 19 years. Bhopal Medical Hospital is maintaining this record. But we don't know what kind of injuries these 1,70,000 victims are actually repeatedly going to hospitals. That means they are all permanently injured. But the bulk of the victims still today are classified as temporarily injured. Even after 35 years you are temporarily injured. Have all the victims who the government has decided so far are victims, got the compensation? Yeah. The 4,70 million, most of it was kept in a dollar account. So during the 12 years the amount of 705 crores actually became 3,000 crores because of the difference in the extent rate. So initially with 1,500 crores they had disbursed their paid compensation to all this 5,73,000 on the basis of 1,00,000 rupees in death cases and 25,000 in injury cases. And the government is actually going to pocket 1,500 crores. So then we told the courts that we totally unjust. So the court again ordered the pro-rater disbursement of the remaining 1,500 crores. So in effect each gas victim got 50,000 in injury cases and 2,00,000 in death cases. So that is what happened. But in 2010 the government on its own decided to pay 10,00,000 as compensation in death cases. At that time they assessed that according to them the official death figure is 5,295. So each of them got 10 lakhs as compensation. Which is also a gross utter estimation of the... Yeah, obviously because death figures are over 20 to 25,000 at least. About 10 years ago, a little less than 10 years ago, the government of India decided the Supreme Court also... It appealed to the Supreme Court also that the cleanup operation at the site should also be taken seriously. Can you tell us what is the status of that right now? According to them about 350 tons of toxic material is stored within the plant. They said that there are 1.1 million tons of toxic waste. In and around the factory? In and around the factory. That's the toxic soil. This contaminated water is separate, that's not quantified. That's 1.1 million tons of toxic waste and toxic soil is there, that has to be cleaned. So this is... It's going to be a long process. And there are technologies which they can remediate the site, on site. Remediate is possible. So what is called the closed loop technology. Where without further contaminating the environment, they can clean up the site. So that's possible. But nothing has happened in the last 35 years. It is not the process has not started at all. So essentially that means that the chemicals still continue to leach into the soil. Not only that, a lot of people staying in and around the factory have been drinking contaminated water. For all these years? Because many of them are non... who came into the city after the disaster. So a lot of gas victims plus non-gas victims are victims of contaminated water. Can you give an idea of how densely populated the area around? At the time of the disaster, roughly 9 lakh people were in the city at the time. And subsequently I think it's the population's double since then. So we are talking about lakhs of people again getting further affected. Is there any program run by the government or any agency which informs people of the risks of this? We've been taking up... we've been saying that drinking water should be provided to the people staying in and around the plant. So there's a Supreme Court order also that has not been fully executed by the state government. So that's another fight because we're also saying that the people who are affected by contaminated water and toxic waste should also be compensated and should also be eligible for free medical care. The government recently decided that a certain report which links the after effects of the exposure in 1984 with birth defects even in generations today. So somehow we hear the news that this report is being suppressed. Now there have been a lot of suppressions of information in the Bhopal tragedy. First was the TIS survey which you just mentioned. What exactly would have happened if the TIS survey had been conducted fully and the government had relied on their findings? The survey carried out by the Titan Institute of Social Sciences with the help of various students and staff from various schools of social work, roughly about 500 people. It carried out the survey in early 1985. They had completed a survey in about 10,000 households. So that is the basic. Unfortunately that the data was not properly analyzed because the entire data was confiscated by the state government. Even Titan Institute of Social Sciences did not have access to the data. And the reason given for that? No, no, no, no reason, no reason. Just suppose that later. So till today a comprehensive survey has not been carried out. So we do not know the victims, we do not know the deaths, we do not know the injuries and the extent of the injuries. And not only that, the ICMR had started various projects to assess the degree of injury etc. But after 10 years in 1994, they closed down the entire project, you know, medical research into the effects of it. And it was only in 2010, you know, because of our continued protest that those research progress were revived, you know. So crucial time period in 1994 to 2010, nothing happened. So there is inadequate research into the actual effects of the exposure. So which makes the cleanup even more important? If there was proper medical research into the effects of the toxic gases. We would have had good information by then because now it's 35 years and 2-3 generations are born and brought up after that. So we would have had good information. But from reports, they are trying to suppose even that information. Of the genetic effects? Genetic effects. And not only that, I mentioned about spurious and oral medication. Because of which a lot of people are suffering, their kidneys have been badly affected. So they were supposed to carry out a proper study of that. That information is also not being made public. Who is supposed to carry out this treatment? ICMR. Basically other than the free treatment, have the victims and the compensation that they got. Now what is supposed to be the next step for the victims? Will having this health information actually help them if it is done? Yes, of course. In what way exactly? If there is proper monitoring of the health system, we would actually know what are the problems the victims are suffering from. And what kind of treatment is further required, etc. So proper monitoring and computation of the health record is very important. So now what happens in the next coming days? Do you have pending? The other issues of prosecuting the accused. So that matter is also pending for the district court, even after. So we have been insisting that the state government set up a special court, try all the accused. And also try the absconding accused unit by corporation that is in absentia. That is also possible to carry out the trial. Initially the CBI had made an attempt to establish what I think has been claimed by many people that the standard which was maintained in the Indian plant and in the US plant were not the same. So what happened? The Delhi Science Forum had carried out this study initially and we came out of this report. We said the cause of this was double safety standards in the sense that they had a similar problem in the United States where the safety systems were of a different standard. Better standard? Yeah, of course better standard and the safety systems in Bhopal were under designed. Meaning that the installed system could not have prevented a disaster. And for example the scrubber was under designed. It was never enough to neutralize the amount of toxic materials stored in the plant. Similarly the coolant, the refrigeration system was also under designed. So even of the safety systems in working order, they could not have prevented the disaster. Whereas in the United States you have a system that even under the worst case scenario, they will be able to contain the disaster within the plant. So based on our report the CBI said that they would carry out a comparative study and a CBI team went from India to the United States in November 1988. At that time the US government, the Justice Department said that they have to get permission from the state of West Virginia to allow them to carry out the comparative study. So the CBI team which went to the United States came back without visiting the Union Carbide plant. But on 14th February 1989 the Justice Department informed the Indian Embassy in Washington that permission has been granted to the CBI to visit the plant and carry out the visit the plant. Unfortunately the same day on 14th and 15th February there is a settlement in the Supreme Court which clearly says that the settlement took place in order to prevent the CBI from inspecting the West Virginia plant. It's very clear. But how can a settlement be announced all of a sudden? This information that the permission has been granted may not have been shared with the Supreme Court and we have not privy to that information at that time. At the time of the settlement? We got to know this fact much later. So possibly the courts were misled. But during the review petition we pointed this out to the court. We came to know this information. But unfortunately the court refused to accept the content. But after the criminal cases were revived the CBI again said that they would go and carry out that inspection. But after 1991 it has never happened. The CBI has actually never taken the initiative to go through the years and carry out that. Although the criminal cases are revived in October 1991. So what happens next now? What is the next step for the victims of the tragedy? There should be a speeded trial. For the criminal cases? Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for joining Newslet.