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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday filed a filed a curative petition in the Supreme Court seeking restoration of stringent charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder against the accused in the 1984 Bhopal Gas tragedy case. The petition put forward by Attorney General G E Vahanvati, has sought reconsideration of the apex court judgement of September 13, 1996 , which had reduced the charges against Union Carbide India Chairman Keshub Mahindra and six others. "We have asked the court to reconsider the decision of the apex court, which diluted the charges against the accused. We have sought a direction from the court to restore section 304 part-II of the IPC," said Advocate Devdatt Kamat, who drafted the over 500-page curative petition. The CBI in its curative petition said the 1996 verdict diluting charges suffered from serious errors. The Magistrate Court in Bhopal had on June 7 convicted eight people all eight accused on the grounds of death due to negligence under Section 304 (a) and sentenced them to two years jail term. The court convicted Keshub Mahendra, Vijay Gokhle, Kishore Kamdar, J Mukund, S P Choudhary, K V Shetty and S I Qureshi in the case. The court later granted bail to seven Indian Union Carbide India Ltd (UCIL) officials convicted and released them on submission of a surety of Rs 25,000. The charge under section 304 part-II was diluted to section 304A by the bench comprising the then Chief Justice A M Ahmadi and Justice S B Majmudar. In the early hours of December 3, 1984 , around 40 metric tonnes of toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leaked into the atmosphere and was carried by wind to surrounding slums. The Government says around 3,500 died in one of India 's most horrific of industrial disasters. Rights activists, however, claim that 25,000 people have died so far.

Bhopal Gas tragedy: CBI files curative petition in Supreme Court