No wrong in safe passage to Anderson: Former Union minister

Former Union minister Vasant Sathe said on Tuesday that there was nothing wrong or illegal in giving safe passage to then Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson and the Congress should not feel embarrassed about it.

"I think Congress is making a mistake... I don't know why Congress is not accepting, there is nothing shameful about the whole affair," Sathe, who was the Union minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers in 1984, said.

He was replying to a question by Karan Thapar during his 'India Tonight' programme on CNBC on whether the Congress was making a mistake in refusing to accept that it was a decision taken by the Rajiv Gandhi government.

"I don't know exactly... Whether Rajiv Gandhi personally knew about this, before Anderson was given safe passage. Rajiv Gandhi had just taken over as prime minister and he was busy in the election campaign, when this whole thing took place.

"But I am sure authorities who gave this safe passage to Anderson must have informed Rajiv Gandhi," Sathe said when asked whether he was prepared to accept that Anderson was given safe passage and that Rajiv Gandhi, both approved and concurred with this decision.

"I think you are right," he maintained when asked whether he was saying it was a decision taken by the Rajiv Gandhi government to give Anderson the safe passage.         "At that time it was absolutely graceful and necessary to allow Anderson a safe passage to India and to Bhopal and it was also right that in Bhopal, he was arrested under the law.

And again he was granted bail by the court, just as the bail was given to the other main accused. So therefore there was nothing wrong or illegal in the whole affair," Sathe said.

Asked whether arresting Anderson was a breach of promise and that the arrest shouldn't have happened once he had been granted a safe passage, the senior Congress leader said, "Once Anderson came here, under the Indian law he was subject to being arrested and also being granted bail because the offence under which he was arrested was bailable."

He said that his having been given the safe passage to come to India did not mean "that he would not be bound by the Indian law. And under the Indian law being head of the company, Union Carbide, he was liable to be arrested. And there was nothing wrong".

Asked whether his immediate release after the arrest was justified, Sathe said, "It was justified. There was absolutely nothing wrong or dishonourable about the affair.