Madhya Pradesh High Court Orders Trial Runs To Dispose Of Union Carbide's Toxic Waste Material At Pithampur

The division bench of Chief Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Vivek Jain observed, “…we hereby direct the respondents to undertake first trial run of 10 metric tonne by taking all protocols into consideration on 27.02.2025 and thereafter see the result of the same. If there is no adverse effect, the second trial run will take place on 04.03.2025 followed by the third trial run on 10.03.2025 and thereafter based on results of same, after the due tests they will continue to dispose of the remaining waste and file the status report.”

In its last order dated January 6, the court had ordered the media to not publish any fake news or misinformation regarding the disposal of Union Carbide waste material at Pithampur facility. Further, the court had directed the State to take into consideration all the safety measures and accordingly comply with the order dated December 3, 2024.

On Tuesday (February 18), the State Government furnished the status report in the Court which stated that the Chief Secretary, Government of Madhya Pradesh held a meeting on January 11 and issued directives to take appropriate steps to make aware the public about the previous trial runs carried out in 2013 & 2015 and their reports should be made available in the simple language for the public by local administration.

The report further stated that the action plan for six weeks' timeline has been prepared by the Department of Bhopal Gas Relief Tragedy and Rehabilitation and has been provided to the concerned stakeholders to make aware of the actual facts to the public by the environmental experts, medical experts and the experts of other fields working in the Universities and educational institutions to make proper public communication with the scientific documents regarding the disposal of the UCIL waste.

The State Government also informed the court that owing to the painstaking efforts of the various functionaries of the State, the entire waste has been unloaded from the trucks avoiding any public outcry or unrest and as many as 11 representatives of people have requested the Collector, Dhar to conduct trial runs of 10 metric tonne and after sharing the results of the same with the public, remaining waste should be disposed of slowly following all protocol and procedure/guidelines etc.

Therefore, the Court directed the respondents to undertake first trial run of 10 metric tonne by taking all protocols into consideration on 27.02.2025 and thereafter see the result of the same.

The court has posted the matter on March 23 with the reports of the trial runs.

Case Title: Alok Pratap Singh (Deceased) In Rem Vs The Union Of India And Others