Business Law and Ethics: Bhopal Gas Tragedy and Unethical Practices

Business Law and
Ethics

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Bhopal Gas Tragedy....................................................................................................................3
Ethics in Business.......................................................................................................................4
Ethical issues which lead to Bhopal Gas tragedy........................................................................4
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)......................................................................................5
CSR in the case of Bhopal Gas Disaster.....................................................................................5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Business ethics are the code of conduct which helps in the governance of any business
and also the activities which are practised by them. There are many laws that are needed in the
governance of business but the only law which is made obligatory upon all the businesses are the
law of ethics. The ethics is the behaviour and conduct of any business organisation towards other
organisation, its employees and also with the people an organisation is associated with like: its
investors, suppliers, etc. It is important the company practise ethically while doing its business as
the ethical conduct or behaviour of the company directly affect the company in various ways
(Reddy and Yadav, 2017) . It can also cause damage to the reputation of the company and also
its downfall.
This report consist of the Methyl Isocyanate Gas leak incident that took place in Bhopal
on 3rd December, 1984 which is a plant situated in Madhya Pradesh, India. This report explains
the unethical practices of the company which were lacking and also the social responsibilities
which Union Carbide Company (UCC) and Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) neglected
while carrying out business and its activities.
MAIN BODY
Bhopal Gas Tragedy
The world's most famous industrial catastrophes took place in 1984 on December 3rd.
The disaster took place in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India due to the methyl Isocyanate (MIC)
gas leak at the plant of Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) which was dealing with the
production of pesticides. To produce MIC the company was using very dangerous gas i.e. MIC.
The company's practices were unethical and the management was not working up to the
standards which were expected out of them. The quality of the products and machines used at the
plant were of very poor quality and the same were never replaced or repaired by the management
of the company (Kulkarni and et. al., 2019).
The cooling component used for maintaining the temperature of the MIC was not
working and the temperature of it was also increased from that of the actual temperature needed.
This was the reason of the leakage of the dangerous MIC gas. When the gas was leaked. Soon
people working stated to feel sensational burning on their skin and irritation. The reaction of the
gas with water tank at the plant lead the mixture to explode as its mixture is very dangerous.