Bailable warrant against then collector, SP in gas leak case

A court here today issued bailable warrants against the then district collector and Superintendent of Police, booked for allegedly helping Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) chairman Warren Anderson escape from India after the 1984 gas tragedy.
Chief Judicial Magistrate Bhubhaskar Yadav issued the warrant of Rs 5,000 each to the then Collector Moti Singh and retired SP Swaraj Puri after they failed to appear in the court.
The CJM directed that the warrants should be served through the Bhopal Senior Superintendent of Police to the two accused.
On January 13 too they didn't turn up in the court after summons were issued to them.

Anderson, a US citizen, never deposed before the Bhopal court for trial in the case related to world's worst industrial disaster, and was declared an absconder. He died in the US in 2013.
Both the officers, now retired, were charged under IPC Sections 212 (harbouring offender), 217 (public servant disobeying direction of law with intent to save person from punishment) and 221 (intentional omission to apprehend on the part of public servant bound to apprehend).

The magistrate had on December 19 directed the two ex- officials to appear before him on January 13.
The court was hearing petitions filed by Abdul Jabbar of NGO Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan and Bhopal Gas Peedit Sangharsh Sahyog Samiti, and Satinath Sarangi of Bhopal Group for Information and Action.

The case was filed after the activists sought action against the two former officers for allegedly helping Anderson escape from the country.
Toxic gas leaked from UCCs now-defunct pesticide factory here on the intervening night of December 2 and 3, 1984. Nearly 15,000 people were killed and lakhs maimed in the industrial disaster.