subject: Bhopal Gas Tragedy Verdict: Justice delayed is justice denied? [print this page] Bhopal Gas Tragedy Verdict: Justice delayed is justice denied?
The Bhopal Gas tragedy verdict which has been in the news headlines these past few days has once again proved the old saying that justice delayed is indeed justice denied...but in this case it is rather a mockery of the country's entire judical system. With more than 15,000 people killed and 25 years after the horrific incident only eight people have been held guilty and that with a punishment of 2 years. To top it all the main accused in the case Warren Anderson, the then chief of Union Carbide, is living at his plush mansion in the United States. No wonder the media and news headlines are once again flooded with the Bhopal Gas verdict and how easily the Indian Government bent over backwards to ensure that Anderson was allowed to leave the country after the incident. What is further embarassing is that a former top CBI officer, who was supervising the investigations, is now on record saying how he was under pressure to allow Anderson to leave the country.
This now brings us to the moot point that had it not been for the media playing a more vigilant role and the headlines crying foul day after day, will the judical system of the country ever deliver proper justice. Look at some of the recent cases like Jessica Lal, BMW hit and run case, Priyadarshini Matto case or the Ruchika molestation case...had it not been for the media perhaps justice could never ever have been done. So why is it that the country's police and judicial system requires that jolt from the media to deliver results. Is it not high time in wake of the Bhopal Gas tragedy verdict now that we put in place a more robust judical framework that is insulated from external influences.
Apart from this, as the news reports day after day have been suggesting, we also need to have highly accounatable system where both the investigators and the public prosecutors should be made responsible if the case is not able to result in adequate conviction in court. Media has been highlighting this issue for quite sometime now as to how even though the workout percentage in most cases by police or CBI is very high, their conviction rate is very poor. This means the cases fall flat in court perhaps due to connivance of the prosecutors and the investigating officers.
So even though the media is aggressively highlighting the mockery that has come in form of the Bhopal Gas tragedy verdict, the Government definitely needs to take note of it and come out with corrective measures sooner than later.
