In a significant development concerning the long-pending cleanup of the Bhopal gas tragedy site, a division bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court on Monday put on hold an earlier order that had stalled the disposal of hundreds of metric tons of toxic incinerated ash.
Court Revisits Order on Toxic Ash Disposal
The bench, comprising Justices Vivek Kumar Singh and Ajay Kumar Nirankari, suspended the October 8 order issued by a separate two-judge bench. That previous order, passed by Justices Atul Sreedharan and Pradeep Mittal, had directed the state government to find an alternative site for disposing of the hazardous material. The stay was granted because the identified landfill in Pithampur, Dhar district, was deemed too close—only 500 metres—from a human settlement.
The state government had filed a plea seeking a recall of that October 8 directive. During the hearing, which stemmed from a petition by activist Alok Pratap Singh demanding a clean-up of the former Union Carbide plant, the government counsel argued for the order to be set aside.
New Directive: A Two-Month Deadline
Instead of upholding the October stay, the bench of Justices Singh and Nirankari instructed the government to adhere to a preceding High Court order from December 3, 2024. That earlier order, issued by a bench headed by the then Chief Justice S K Kaith, had strongly criticized the government for the "inordinate delay" in dealing with the waste.
The court has now mandated that the disposal of the toxic ash must be completed within the next two months. Crucially, this process must be carried out in consultation with an expert committee that was constituted by the court to oversee the matter.
Background of the Hazardous Waste
The controversy revolves around approximately 800 metric tons of toxic ash. This ash was generated from the incineration of 337 metric tons of packaged waste that had been lying at the defunct Union Carbide plant in Bhopal. The incineration itself was conducted at the Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facility (TSDF) in Pithampur.
This operation faced fierce opposition from local residents, advocacy groups, and representatives of the Bhopal gas tragedy victims. They had approached the court, protesting against the planned burial of the Carbide ash at the Pithampur site, citing serious health and environmental risks for the nearby community.
The latest court order effectively revives the disposal plan at the originally proposed site, but under a strict timeline and with expert oversight. The state government now has a narrow window to execute this critical and sensitive environmental remediation task, bringing a measure of urgency to a disaster that has lingered for decades.
