In 2003,LS panel said Centre couldn’t have been in the dark on Anderson

Referring to the CBI statement that the Anderson case was initially with the state police and the circumstances in which he was arrested and released on bail were known to the state police “speaks volumes of things”,which the CBI “did not perhaps like to disclose”,the committee noted.

“The committee are of the firm opinion that in a matter involving such a great industrial disaster involving a foreign company,the state government could not have taken a unilateral decision on arrest and release” of Anderson. The panel held “both the governments in the state and the Centre equally responsible for this drama….”

The panel came down heavily on the CBI and the government,recording its distress over the repeated delays in the handling of the case:

It noted that the CBI filed the chargesheet against 12 accused,including Anderson,in a Bhopal court on December 1,1987,three years after the tragedy. Though the court issued a non-bailable warrant of arrest for arranging extradition proceedings against Anderson on April 19,1992,the CBI again took more than an year to forward the case to the Ministry of External Affairs,finally doing so on September 23,1993.

The ministry took another year to place the matter before a committee of secretaries. This secretaries’ panel,on February 9,1995,decided the CBI would transfer all relevant documents to the MEA,which would then examine whether extradition proceedings against Anderson were legally sustainable under the provisions of the Indo-US Extradition Treaty.

The secretaries suggested that the opinion of the Attorney General be also sought. After the SC on September 13,1996,quashed the charges under Section 304 II and and held that the material on record could prima facie sustain case only under Section 304 A of the IPC — causing death by rash and negligent act — the Attorney General on July 31,1998,gave the opinion that the same reasoning would apply to Anderson also. And that any extradition request for him would have to be limited to 304 A.

The MEA took almost six months even to write to the Indian Embassy in Washington to locate a law firm there as also asking the CBI to prepare and send a self-contained memorandum. “It is amazing the CBI took another one-and-a-half years preparing the brief (to be sent) to the ministry,” the panel noted.

The legal opinion of the US firm was received on April 4,2001.

“The CBI decided to move the court only on May 23,2002,i.e. four years after the (A-) advice”.

Seeking to know the reasons for the “inordinate delay” and recommending that responsibility for this be fixed,the committee said: “The delayed reaction… clearly shows that the government were either too diffident or cautious as to decide the course of action to take and,therefore,preferred to watch and wait for the development to unfold in future,or too complacent to notice the urgency of the case to be settled…

“The committee have,therefore,come to a conclusion that the government never seemed to be serious enough to get this case decided on priority basis and dealt the case in a routine manner… or might be too reluctant” to proceed against Anderson.

Bhopal: CBI admits prosecution weak

JABALPUR (MP): Facing flak for alleged shoddy prosecution in the 1984 Bhopal gas leak case,the CBI has admitted that its prosecution was not good as compared to the accused who brought a battery of lawyers to defend them.

“CBI accused come in court with an entire team of lawyers as compared to our side which has just one Public Prosecutor. In Bhopal (gas leak) case also there used to be a team of five to six advocates from the side of the accused,” CBI director Ashwani Kumar said on the sidelines of a function here.

Kumar said after seeing this,the CBI has also decided to follow the same to improve the prosecution.

The director said while the agency’s investigations were good,the problem area was prosecution and trial. “Our investigations are good but our weakness is prosecution and trial. We want to focus on these areas more”.

The CBI director had a word of advice to look ahead and not to conduct “post-mortem of a 25-year-old case”. He also defended the decision of the court saying that maximum punishment that could have been given as per the chargesheet has been given. He said the court gives its decision on the basis of the chargesheet. PTI