The Centre on Tuesday informed the Supreme Court that it would like to pursue a curative petition filed by the then UPA government in 2011 against US-based Union Carbide Corporation seeking an enhanced compensation of Rs 7,413 crore for the victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.

Appearing for the Union government, attorney-general N. Venkatramani told a five-judge bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul that the Centre “cannot abandon the victims as the tragedy unfolds every day”.

“The government is very keen to pursue this matter. I have applied my mind to the review aspect and the various other challenges in reopening this matter…. We cannot abandon the victims, because the tragedy is unfolding every day. I am sure we will be able to assist the court with this challenging case where more than one aspect of the matter may have to be unravelled.

“We have considerable literature (judicial citations on such enhanced compensations by courts) on where the courts have gone beyond the settlement arena. I will place all that before this court,” Venkatramani said.

The Centre on Tuesday made the submission pursuant to the September 20 direction of the bench asking for its response to the curative petition filed by the UPA-II government in 2011 seeking the enhancement of the compensation to Rs 7,413 crore from Rs 750 crore awarded by the Supreme Court in 1989.

The UPA government had filed the curative petition in February 2011 following a nationwide outrage over the meagre two-years rigorous imprisonment awarded to six erstwhile Union Carbide employees by a trial court in Bhopal, holding them guilty for criminal negligence for one of the world’s worst-ever environmental disasters.

According to the government, the earlier judgment was based on incorrect records and calculations.