Facing flak for alleged shoddy prosecution in the 1984 Bhopal gas leak case, the Central Bureau of Investigation has accepted that its prosecution was not good as compared to the accused, who brought a battery of lawyers to defend them.
"The CBI accused come in court with an entire team of lawyers as compared to our side which has just one Public Prosecutor. In Bhopal (gas leak) case also there used to be a team of five-six advocates from the side of the accused," CBI director Ashwani Kumar said on the sidelines of a function here.
Kumar said after seeing this, the CBI has also decided to follow the same to improve the prosecution.
The director said while the agency's investigations were good, the problem area was prosecution and trial. "Our investigations are good but our weakness is prosecution and trial. We want to focus on these areas more".
Kumar, however, added that trial was not in agency's hand and matter totally in the court domain.
The CBI director had a word of advice to look ahead and not to conduct "post-mortem of a 25-year-old case".
Kumar said the effort should be that such a tragedy never happens again, but if happens, then victims should be given immediate relief and those behind the incident should be punished.
He also defended the decision of the court saying that maximum punishment that could have been given as per the chargesheet has been given.
He said the court gives its decision on the basis of the chargesheet.
The chargesheet was according to the Supreme Court and we were able to get maximum punishment according to that, Kumar said. PTI
