Bhopal: Dow Chemicals, which bought Union Carbide Corporation in 2001
On Thursday moved a clean application in the court of judicial magistrate first class Hemalata Ahirwar challenging an Indian court’s jurisdiction to summon the enterprise for a hearing in the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster case.
The courtroom, giving time to the CBI and Bhopal Group for Information & Action (BGIA) to respond to the new application, deferred the hearing of the case to Jan 23.
Senior Counsel Ravindra Shrivastava regarded in court on behalf of the US chemical giant. The enterprise has challenged the jurisdiction of an Indian court to summon it for trial.
Rachna Dhingra, co-convener of BGIA, which moved the application inside the court of CJM in 2004 looking for summons to Dow Chemicals for hearing in the Carbide disaster criminal case, said the case was listed for very last arguments on Thursday.
The new application moved by Shrivastava, which offers not anything new however only reiterates the usual argument of Dow Chemicals from the beginning of the case, claimed that a Bhopal court can’t summon the enterprise, which operates from the US and not India, for hearing to in any case. It additionally argued that Union Carbide was a separate entity from Dow Chemical.
Dhingra defined this as merely an attempt to delay proceedings in the case.
BGIA, in its application in 2004, sought to enlist Dow Chemicals as an accused in the Bhopal gas disaster criminal case, because it bought Union Carbide Corporation (UCC).
UCC was declared a proclaimed culprit by the CJM court after it did now not seem for a hearing within the criminal case. BGIA argued that Dow Chemicals took over UCC, absolutely aware to the enterprise’s records, and might not only own its assets but also its liabilities.
The court issued numerous summonses to the enterprise, and only with the help of US Justice Department, the ninth summons can be deliver to the enterprise in the US.
Shrivastava, along side a group of lawyers, has been appearing in courtroom on behalf of the enterprise ever since. He made it clean from the start that by this appearance, it must no longer be perceived that Dow was accepting the jurisdiction of the Bhopal court.
