Bhopal Gas Tragedy: A Case Study on Business Law and Ethics

This report provides a case study on the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, highlighting the background, incident, reasons, impact, and ethical issues. It explores the ethical implications and legal aspects of the disaster, emphasizing the importance of business ethics in preventing such incidents.

Business law and
ethics

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................3
Background.................................................................................................................................3
Incident........................................................................................................................................4
Reasons for that incident.............................................................................................................4
Impact of the Disaster.................................................................................................................5
Ethical issues...............................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Business law is branch of civil law which regulates the working of the businesses in the
country. It is an umbrella in which there are different legislations from each subject which helps
in ensuring its smooth functioning (Ali, and Khan 2017). Business ethics can be referred to as the
study of the appropriate business practices and policies with regard to potential controversial
subjects like corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, insider trading, bribery,
discrimination and the fiduciary responsibilities. All the ethical issues which are being part of the
society and creates harm in the making of the forgoing area amounts to the ethical issues raised
by the business and its mutual reasons. The business practises which are forgoing should follow
all the cultural approach of the society so as to protect the environment and its reasonable areas.
This report deals with the case study Bhopal gas tragedy.
TASK
Bhopal gas Tragedy
Background
Bhopal gas tragedy is being a well known incident which has created a worst impact on
the whole country. This is the adversely the biggest commercial disaster being happened in the
country which has the lowest possibility but created the highest consequences by its effect(Jang
and et. al., 2017). On the night of 3 December,1984 their was a leakage in the Union Carbide
India Limited (UCIL) plant of pesticides situated in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, Where there was a
explosion of Methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas which is the most toxic gas in the world that resulted
that almost their were about 800,000 people residing in Bhopal and when this incident happened
almost 2000 people died immediately and about 300,00 individuals were handicapped and
permanently disabled.
The Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) was setted up in 1969 for producing the
pesticide Sevin by the substitute using of MIC. This company was made by the Union Carbide
Corporation (UCC) and it covers almost 50.9% of the subsidiary(Mathew, 2020). The UCIL
plant was generated and fixed in Bhopal and all the labours and the working class is being
concerned with the Bhopal as that company was earlier being fixed in Bombay but later on, the
Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh has discusse4d and them arranged the plant of UCIL in
Bhopal, 1969. By the time, the production of that resources has started in 1979 (Kally, 2020).

The company has used Sevin pesticide which contains the composition of United states of
America. The mixing and all the rest work was being done in the plant of Bhopal.
Warning Alert
In 1976, their was a complain raised by the employees working over their that chemical
were making heavy pollution in the work environment. And their arises a heavy pollution from
the side of board as in 1981 phosgene splashed on one of the worker who went their for cleaning
purpose as due to suffocation he removes his mask and inhaled the gas which resulted that the
worker died in few hours. In 1982, again an incident happened where 24 workers exposed to
phosgene as due to the leakage of the gas resulted in all of them were admitted in the hospital
and resulted in the death of many(Grover, 2017).
In 1983 an 1984 their arises several times the leakage of methyl isocyanate, mono
methylamine, phosgene and carbon tetrachloride.
Incident
As the company has so many tanks filled with the chemicals and their were about 3 tanks filled
with MIC with 6800 litres covered in them named E610, E611 and E619. Their implied a strict
instruction that non tanks can be filled for more than 50% of the gas. However it has noted that
their was filling of MIC should be 30 tonnes but they had made it to 42 tonnes which resulted to
create huge pressure in the tanks and the pressure increases to 5 times then the normal pressure
(Lokeshwari and et. al., 2017).
Reasons for that incident
 The workers while cleaning the tanks has by mistakenly made water released in
the tank and they were unaware about the consequence of mixing of the MIC with
water which created a problem.
 The temperature sensors were not working properly and due to the carelessness
they aware even not mentioning that problem(Chandy, 2019).
 Even when the warning has been raised about the pollution created by those gases
the vent scrubber was not been fixed.
 Their was lack of supervision in the factory as that incident happened in the night
most of the employees were not being on their duty.
 The emergency team made for all such disaster was not properly trained as a
result of which they were not aware about handling the situation.

Impact of the Disaster
This tragedy has affected whole Bhopal adversely as their were some many deaths arises
due to this leakage mere about thousands of people who were sleeping were never woke up. It
created further impact like:
 Government of Madhya Pradesh issued that their was the highest death rate occur on that
time where about 3787 people were affected by gas leakage(Nayar, 2017).
 It affected the health of the individuals even after years their has been a situation that
most of the people were suffering from various diseases like eye irritation, failure in
giving birth, cough, choking in throats Neurological disorder, weak immune system and
many more as these gases created worst impact on their genes.
 The environment of Bhopal was also badly being affected by that case as when noticed
the gas which released almost 359 tonnes of pesticide in the environment and MIC was
also being mixed with the air and soil that made the green place soil toxic(Polsani,
2020).No person was being able to make the farming or growing in that area for various
years.
 It has also raised issue for infants as it also affected with the breast feeding due to the
intoxication in the body. And all the lungs and the body affected by the chemicals. The
birth rate was also decreased by that disaster and most of the new born came with some
disease or heath issue.
Ethical issues
While the ethical issues were being concerned, Their has been made a report which was
for getting the closure look of UCC as that report implied that their arises a serious
malfunctioning in the industry.( Radical City. SAGE Publishing India). But the report made was
never being forwarded to the Bhopal gas tragedy. All the companies and its working in such
chemicals should have to take proper care and caution.
As when it is summarised it can be seen that the company was very well aware about the
harmful consequences of that product and though they had not made any training and
development for the workers working over their. They were lacking in all the training system as
the working of company was in India and the employees and the set up being made in America
were not giving adequate amount of knowledge to the workers(Malhotra, 2017). Their was one

more important issue being raised in which it was accounted that the manual given with the
instructions in Bhopal about the dangerous consequences and instruction, guidance all was
written in English whereas, most of the employees in the factory do not even know how to read
and write in English. So this language barrier was also one of the main factor, It is also seen that
the supervisor of the Bhopal also declined when their has been said to take the responsibilities of
the act which happened. Supervisor has also not given a proper training to the employees in all
their working performs(Šelek and et. al., 2019). Thus, as every company and the organisation
should have to follow all the ethical measures as we see the result of this worst disaster ever
happened that due to the lack of the ethical issues and working of any person their arises such
problems were numerous of employees were being harmed and affected and no one is ready to
take the responsibility of such major disaster.
CONCLUSION
From this above report it is concluded that, Business ethics is an important element which
is to be focused in every business and activity. All the organisation and companies should focus
on the proper working with the morals and ethics in the society. The Bhopal gas tragedy was
being one of the worst disaster in the history. UCC has not taken proper measures and guidelines.
They were ethically wrong and even after knowing the worst consequences of that poisonous gas
didi not trained their employees properly. Thus, it resulted in the leakage of MIC and took life of
so many people in Bhopal gas tragedy.

REFERENCES
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Lokeshwari and et. al., 2017. Urban Air Pollution Impact and Strategic Plans—A Case Study of
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Springer, Singapore.
Nayar, P.K., 2017. Bhopal's Ecological Gothic: Disaster, Precarity, and the Biopolitical
Uncanny. Lexington Books.
Polsani, P.R., 2020. Radical City. SAGE Publishing India.
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