A division bench of the Jabalpur high court comprising Chief Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Vivek Jain, while hearing a petition filed by activist late Alok Pratap Singh, warned to initiate contempt proceedings against the principal secretary of the department concerned if the deadline set by the court for disposal of the toxic waste is not met.
The petition sought a directive to the state government by the high court to destroy 350 metric tonnes of toxic waste, kept in the shed of the Union Carbide factory site, at the Pithampur incineration plant in Dhar district in the state.
The bench ordered the state chief secretary and principal secretary of gas relief and rehabilitation department to be present in the court during the next hearing of the case, scheduled to be held on January six, in case of non-compliance of the directive.
“We have perused orders passed by this court on March 30, May 13 and June 23, 2005, and recently in September, 2024. Though some steps have been taken, they are minimal and cannot be appreciated because the petition dates to 2004 and almost 20 years have lapsed but the respondents are at the first stage of initiating the disposal process”, the court observed.
The court maintained that “This is a really sorry state of affairs because the removal of toxic waste from the plant site, decommissioning the MIC (methyl iso-cyanate) and Sevin plants, and removal of contaminants that have spread in the surrounding soil and groundwater are of paramount requirement for the safety of Bhopal residents”.
The leakage of deadly MIC in the pesticide plant of the Union Carbide on the intervening night of December two-three, 1984 had led to the killing of over 15,000 people and injuries to six lakh others.
The plant was closed down and the factory site has been sealed for the last four decades.
A move to dispose of the toxic waste at the factory site was first initiated in 2005 with disposal of ten of the 350 metric tonnes of toxic waste at the Pithapuram incineration plant on trial basis.
But it was suspended following protests by the local people.
