New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Sunday dismissed its petition seeking more compensation from Union Carbide for the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy. The gas leak that killed over 3,000 people is among the world’s worst industrial disasters.

The centre had sought that the case be reopened and Union Carbide’s successor firms be directed to pay an additional Rs 7,844 crore to victims of the gas leak. Rejecting the petition, the five-judge Constitution bench said the settlement can be set aside only on the ground of fraud and that the centre had not argued on this point.

On December 2,1984, toxic methyl isocyanate gas leaked from the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal. Over 3,000 people were killed and more than a lakh affected. The then Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson was prime accused in the case, but did not appear for the trial.

Eleven days after the cloud from the Union Carbide plant, resumption of work was announced, provoking an exodus. A total of 200,000 persons fled Bhopal (which had 800,000 inhabitants).

Thousands of women and children also reported severe and permanently disabling injuries and arrived at Hameedia Hospital by the truckload.

The hospital was overflowing with victims of the disaster.

Several children whose parents had been contaminated by a carcinogenic and mutagenic water supply were born with ailments. A new generation grew up sick, and disabled.

Approximately one thousand victims of the Bhopal Gas disaster protested near the Parliament, demanding justice and compensation in 2004.

About 40 tons of methyl isocyanate and other lethal gases leaked from Union Carbide Corporation’s pesticide factory. It was the worst chemical disaster in the history of the world.

The gases burnt the tissues of the eyes and lungs, crossed into the bloodstream and damaged almost every system in the body.