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 bench also issued notices to the companies on the Centre’s plea seeking transfer of the writ petition before the Madhya Pradesh high court, which is hearing the issues relating to environmental damages caused due to the leakage of the poisonous gas,” reported DNA.

The bench comprising of Chief Justice S H Kapadia along with justices Altamas Kabir, RV Raveendran, B Sudershan Reddy and Aftab Alam said that they would sit to hear the curative petition three times per week from 13 April.

In June of last year the former Indian chairman and six other directors, managers and staff of Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) were 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.

The court had also imposed the maximum possible sentence of two years of simple imprisonment along with a fine of only Rs 1 lakh each on all the accused. UCIL’s current owners would have to pay Rs 5 lakhs in fine.

In August 2010 the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) filed a curative petition in the Supreme Court seeking harsher punishments.

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