Union Carbide India

India’s Supreme Court has today dismissed the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) curative petition to reinstate culpable homicide charges against those responsible for the Bhopal gas disaster.

A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court has issued notices to Union Carbide Corp and Dow Chemicals for increasing compensation to victims of Bhopal gas leak from Rs 750 crore to Rs 7,844 crore while hearing the Union government’s curative petition today.

The Supreme Court has reopened the Bhopal gas leak disaster case today after a curative petition filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), seeking harsher punishments for the accused after convictions in June resulted in a two-year suspended jail sentence for those responsible.

The former Indian chairman and six other directors, managers and staff of Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) have been sentenced to two years imprisonment for causing death by negligence in the world's biggest industrial gas leak disaster in Bhopal in 1984 that had killed up to tens of thousands.