Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 5 (ANI): Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Prithviraj Chavan on Thursday said the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has recently sent additional evidence against former Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson to the Ministry of External Affairs in connection with his extradition proceedings in the 1984 Bhopal Gas tragedy case.

“The CBI has been consistently pursuing the matter of extradition of Warren Anderson since 1993. The CBI has sent additional evidence to the Ministry of External Affairs against Warren Anderson for his extradition on July 29, 2010,” said Chavan in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.

“However, the US Department of State did not agree for extradition of Anderson in the Bhopal gas leak case stating that the request of the Government of India does not meet the requirements of dual criminality under Article 2(1) and 9(3) of the Extradition Treaty,” he added.

The Group of Ministers (GoM) constituted to examine all aspects of the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster, seeking Anderson’s extradition apart from measures to clean up the disaster site, had submitted the report to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on June 21.

The GoM had dealt with all the issues - compensation, legal issues, including the issue of the extradition of Warren Anderson, the legal options available to the Government of India, and most importantly, remediation matters, and health related matters.

Union Carbide settled its liabilities to the Indian government in 1989 by paying 470 million dollars before being bought by another US company, Dow Chemical.

In the early hours of December 3, 1984, around 40 metric tonnes of toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leaked into the atmosphere and was carried by wind to surrounding slums.

The Government says around 3,500 died in one of India’s most horrific of industrial disasters. Rights activists, however, claim that 25,000 people have died so far. (ANI)