Bhopal gas tragedy case: MP govt to file curative petition

The Madhya Pradesh government today said it will file a curative petition against the 1996 Supreme Court judgement which had diluted charges against the Bhopal gas tragedy accused.

A decision to this effect was taken late last evening at a meeting of the state cabinet chaired by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, an official release said.

In 1996, a two-member Supreme Court bench headed by the then CJI A M Ahmedi converted the CBI charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, that provided for maximum of 10-year imprisonment, to causing death by negligence, which provided for a maximum punishment of only two years.

The petition will challenge the 1996 judgement and review order of the apex court. It will also seek to revive the charges against the accused in the gas leak case, the release said.

Also, an appeal would be filed against the June 7 verdict of the Chief Judicial Magistrate in the case.

26 years after the world's worst industrial disaster that had left over 15,000 people dead, a local court on June 7 convicted former Union Carbide India chairman Keshub Mahindra and six others in the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy and sentenced them to two-year jail term. However, there was no word about the then Union Carbide chairman Warren Anderson in the judgement delivered by CJM Mohan P Tiwari.

89-year-old Anderson, who lives in the US, left the country soon after the tragedy and was declared an absconder.

According to the press release, it was decided in the meeting that the state government would write to the Centre asking it to file a supplementary charge sheet against Anderson.

The decision was taken on the recommendations of a six-member expert legal committee headed by Additional Solicitor-General Vivek Tankha, which was set up by the Chief Minister following the judgement on the case, the release said.