India’s Supreme Court today allowed a government petition that seeks harsher punishment against officials of Union Carbide Corp.’s local unit convicted of negligence in a 1984 toxic gas leak. A three-judge bench…sought a response from…the former chairman of Union Carbide India Ltd., and six senior employees of the firm, on why they couldn’t face more serious charges of culpable homicide…Reviewing the case may pave the way for the Supreme Court to quash its own September 1996 order that diluted charges to death caused by a rash and negligent acts not amounting to culpable homicide. [also refers to Dow Chemical]