India's top court dismisses compensation petition for 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy victims

NEW DELHI, March 14 (Xinhua) -- India's top court Tuesday dismissed a petition seeking more compensation for the victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.

The court said the issue could not be "raked up more than two decades after the settlement."

The move is seen as a major setback for the federal government's 2010 curative petition to secure more money from Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) to pay the victims of the tragedy that came to be known as "the world's largest industrial disaster."

The apex court said the federal government had not provided any rationale for raking up this matter after two decades and the plea for top-up compensation has no basis in legal principle.

In December 1984, methyl isocyanate leaked from UCC's pesticide plant in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, killing over 3,700 people and affecting another 500,000. Activists put the death toll as high as 25,000 and say the effects of the gas continue even to this day.

In 1989, UCC agreed to pay 470 million U.S. dollars in damages in an out-of-court settlement.

Dow Chemicals, which bought UCC a decade after the tragedy, denied liability and said that settlement agreed upon in 1989 was final.