BHOPAL, India, Aug 28 (AFP) - A court ruled Wednesday that a former chairman of US-based Union Carbide should face culpable homicide charges over the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster, rejecting the Indian government's attempt to downgrade them to negligence.

The ruling after a two-day hearing by Chief Magistrate Rameshwar Khote in this central Indian city represents a significant victory for victims of the disaster, who are worried former company chairman Warren Anderson will escape justice.

Khote said he had made his ruling because Anderson himself had not applied to the court for a reduction of the charges.

The former Bhopal chairman is regarded as an absconder in India after consistently failing to appear in court and returning to the United States, where his current whereabouts are unknown.

Kote ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which had brought the application to reduce the gravity of the charges, to proceed with the culpable homicide case.

Anderson now faces the prospect of being extradited from the United States to stand trial in India, where if found guilty he faces a jail term of up to 20 years.

However, the CBI can resubmit its application to the High Court and even to the Supreme Court, which could delay the extradition process.

At least 3,000 people died when a gas leak occurred at the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal on December 3, 1984 and more than half a million people were seriously injured.

At least another 10,000 deaths have been linked to the disaster, according to victims' groups, who had opposed the reduction of charges.

Should the government have succeeded in getting the charges reduced, Anderson could have evaded trial in India as an extradition treaty between the two countries does not cover cases of negligence.

Lawyers representing victims claimed the government, through the CBI, had been acting under pressure from Washington and because of its concerns not to scare off foreign investors.

The CBI argued the altered charges would bring the case against Anderson in line with Indian former company officials, who have already succeeded in having the charges diluted to negligence.

But lawyers for victims and crusading organisations such as Greenpeace have maintained there is no parallel between the cases.

"The Indian managers were not privy to lot of decisions made at the top so their culpability is less," said lawyer Shreyas Jaisimha, who represents victims' organisations.

"The lessening of charges against the Indian managers does not apply to Anderson and two others because they have not appeared in the court all along," said Raj Panjwani, counsel for Greenpeace.

"He has been absconding from India and has been absent from all hearings pertaining to the matter of criminal liability for the Bhopal gas disaster," Greenpeace said in a statement.

It added that there had been "no move" to extradite Anderson although there was an Interpol alert on him.

"The CBI has been late in pursuing his arrest and extradition and the government of India has been very lenient on the guilty and has been bending over backwards to please big multinational corporations like Dow Chemicals and Union Carbide."

On Tuesday, former company official Gauri Shanker told the court that safety equipment which should have prevented the leak of the lethal gas was not working and that gas storage tanks had been overfilled.

Lawyers for the victims said this evidence alone was enough to support their demands that Anderson should be made to stand trial in India on culpable homicide charges.

"It is a moral victory for us because we have opposed the CBI stand from the beginning," said Abdul Jabbar of victims' group Mahila Gas Peedit Udyog Sangathan.

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