New Delhi: The reconstituted Group of Ministers (GoM) on the Bhopal gas tragedy has decided to recommend the government to review and take over running of the Bhopal Memorial Hospital in its third session here on Saturday.
The GoM discussed all aspects of the disaster ranging from health issues, compensation, works done by the ICMR to extradition of then Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson and all available legal options before the government.
The possibility of government approaching the Supreme Court with a curative petition against the dilution of charges in the Bhopal gas leak case is understood to have found wide support.
The GoM, which is expected to finalise its report for the Prime Minister on Monday, discussed all the pending legal issues and options before it.
The Group of Ministers raised questions on the running of the Bhopal Memorial Hospital which, as reported by CNN-IBN earlier, used victims as guinea pigs and turned away from treatment.
Former CJI AM Ahmadi, who was part of the Supreme Court bench that diluted charges against the Bhopal gas leak accused in 1996, is the chairman of the sospital trust, set up on recommendations of the apex court after the hearing.
"We have heard everyone concerned and we will form some conclusions about how the Bhopal Memorial Hospital should be run in the future," Chidambaram said.
He said the ministers also deliberated on how the epidemiological works should be done in the future and under what aegis and auspices this work should continue.
"We have discussed all issues relating to health that is relating to Bhopal Memorial Trust Hospital, the satellite hospitals, the epidemiological surveys that were done by ICMR, the work now being done by the rehabilitation centre -- all these issues were discussed," the Home Minister said.
The GoM is expected to deliberated on the remediation measures that need to be carried out at the site of the tragedy as also making Union Carbide company party to the process.
The curative petition issue is said to be high on the priority list of the GoM in the light of country-wide outrage that was witnessed after the June 7 judgement of the Bhopal trial court which gave two years imprisonment to all the accused, sources said.
Experts said that the Bhopal court had no option but to give the light sentence after the Supreme Court had diluted the charges against the accused from culpable homicide not amounting to murder to negligence under the IPC.
Another legal issue that came up but a decision is yet to be taken relates to the demand for seeking extradition of former Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson to face trial here in the case of Bhopal gas leak disaster in which over 15,000 lives were lost in December 1984.
Anderson's exit from India on December 7 in the aftermath of the disaster has also triggered another major controversy over who was responsible for the "safe passage".
Home Minister P Chidambaram, who heads to the reconstituted GoM, said after today's meeting "We discussed all pending legal issues and legal options available to the government after the judgement of trial court".
(With inputs from Agencies)
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