On the issue of Bhopal gas leak judgement, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh directed the GoM (Group of Ministers), headed by P Chidambaram, to report to the cabinet within ten days on all aspect relating to the tragedy. A statement from the prime minister office (PMO) said in New Delhi, Manmohan Singh directed that the Group of Ministers “may meet immediately to take stock of the situation arising out of the recent court judgement, to assess the options and remedies available to the government on the various issues involved and to report to the cabinet within 10 days”.
With Chidambaram as the head of the panel, the Group of Ministers set up to look into all issues relating to the Bhopal disaster. The empowered Group of Ministers comprises of Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, Minister of State in the PMO Prithviraj Chavan, Chemical Minister M K Alagiri, Tourism Minister Selja, Minister for Road Transport and Highways Kamal Nath, Minister for Urban Planning S Jaipal Reddy, Law Minister M Veerappa Moily, Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.
A permanent invitee to the panel will be Madhya Pradesh’s minister in-charge of rehabilitation. The Opposition has been attacking the Congress for having allowed Warren Anderson, the CEO of Union Carbide Corp in 1984, who escape from the country after the Bhopal gas tragedy in which more than 15,000 people lost their lives in the gas leak and more than lakh were injured for life.
On December 7 Anderson visited Bhopal, four days after the leak of methyl isocyanate gas from the Union Carbide pesticide plant. Within a few hours he was arrested and flown on a state government plane to New Delhi, from where after two days he flew to the US. On Friday the Congress party rejected PC Alexander’s indication that the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had helped Warren Anderson to get escape from the country.
