Individual susceptibility to cancer has been attributed to polymorphisms in xenobiotic metabolizing genes. To evaluate the association of the Leu432Val polymorphism of cytochrome P4501B1 (CYP1B1) with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), we conducted a case control study in Kashmir, India, an area with a relatively high incidence of ESCC.We recruited 404 histopathologically confirmed ESCC cases, and an equal number of controls, individually matched for sex, age and district of residence to respective cases. Information was obtained on various dietary, lifestyle and environmental factors in face to face interviews, using a structured questionnaire, from each subject. Genotypes were analysed by polymerase chain reaction, restriction fragment length polymorphism and sequencing of randomly selected samples. Conditional logistic regression models were used to calculate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs).Among the three possible variants, we did not find any Leu432Leu genotype of CYP1B1 in the study population and the genotypic distribution of Val432Val and Leu432Val carriers was nearly equal in both cases (89.6% and 10.4%) and controls (88.9% and 11.1%) respectively. We did not find any risk associated with this polymorphism in the current study (OR=0.64; 95% CI: 0.55-1.64).The study indicates that (Leu432Val) polymorphism of CYP1B1, is not associated with ESCC risk. However, replicative studies with larger sample size are needed to substantiate the findings.