The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Thursday gave the Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board (MPPCB) four weeks to present a plan to dispose of ashes of union carbide in Dhar district.
A division bench of Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Anuradha Shukla accepted the request for the deadline sought by MPPCB and adjourned the next hearing for 17 August.
At least 5,479 people were killed and thousands of people were crippled after leakage of highly poisonous methyl isocyanate gas from the Union Carbide pesticide factory on the intervening night of December 2 and 3 in 1984 in Bhopal.
In 2004, a person named Alok Pratap Singh filed a public interest litigation demanding the disposal of poisonous waste of Union Carbide. After his death, the High Court, taking suo cognizance of the case, heard the petition.
Earlier, the state government submitted a report in the court about the disposal of waste at the Pithampur plant in Dhar. The report said that after getting approval from MPPCB, 850 metric tons of ash and remains generated from garbage would be destroyed in a separate landfill cell.