New Delhi: The Centre would pursue its curative petition seeking Rs 7,844 crore as additional funds from successor firms of the US-based Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) for giving compensation to victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, the Supreme Court was informed on Tuesday.
A five-judge constitution bench headed by Justice S K Kaul took note of the submission made by Attorney General R Venkataramani and directed the Centre to prepare a compilation within eight weeks in this regard.
"The Attorney General has taken a stand before us that the government would like to press the curative petition.A number of NGOs would like to be impleaded. However, counsel for respondents has
questioned the maintainability of the petitions as they have come 19 years after the judgement.
"The government would represent plaints of persons who have suffered and thus a compilation would be required to be prepared by the office AG and the resp, insofar as the applicant's associations are concerned, we do not give any liberty to file any pleadings," the bench, also comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, A S Oka, Vikram Nath and JK Maheshwari said.
The matter will now be taken up for hearing on January 10, 2023.
The apex court had earlier asked the Centre to clarify its stand on whether it wants to go ahead with its curative petition seeking additional funds.