NEW DELHI, March 14 (Reuters) – India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the federal government’s plea looking for extra compensation from Union Carbide Corporation for victims of a fuel leak within the central Indian metropolis of Bhopal that resulted in one of many world’s worst industrial disasters.

In the early hours of Dec. 3, 1984, methyl isocyanate fuel leaked from a pesticide manufacturing unit, owned by the American firm, within the state capital of Madhya Pradesh. More than half 1,000,000 folks have been poisoned that night time and the official demise toll exceeded 5,000.

Following the catastrophe, the federal government sued Union Carbide and the corporate agreed to pay an out-of-court settlement of $470 million in damages in 1989.

The authorities approached the nation’s prime courtroom in 2010 looking for enhanced compensation for the victims.

Dow Chemical, which now owns Union Carbide, denied legal responsibility, saying it purchased the corporate a decade after Union Carbide settled its liabilities with the Indian authorities.

“We believe this would not be the appropriate course of action or method to impose a greater liability on the UCC (Union Carbide) than it initially agreed to bear,” the five-judge bench mentioned in its judgement dismissing the petition.

“We are equally dissatisfied with the Union of India for being unable to furnish any rationale for raking up this issue more than two decades after the incident.”

Built in 1969, the Union Carbide plant was seen as a logo of industrialisation in India, producing 1000’s of jobs for the poor and, on the identical time, manufacturing low cost pesticides for tens of millions of farmers.

Thousands of survivors of the tragedy have mentioned they, their kids and grandchildren are nonetheless battling power well being issues because of the leak and poisonous waste left behind.

(This story has been corrected to repair date in dateline)

Writing by Sudipto Ganguly; modifying by Simon Cameron-Moore

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