Describing the verdict in the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy case as "disappointing", Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Wednesday said the state government will challenge it in the High Court and seek enhancement of the sentence awarded to the convicts.

"We are going to challenge the verdict in the High Court for which we have constituted an expert committee to study the legal aspects before going in for an appeal," Chouhan told reporters here.

The five-member committee comprised State Advocate General R D Jain, former state advocate generals Vivek Tankha and Anand Mohan Mathur, State Law Department Principal Secretary A K Mishra and legal luminary Shantilal Lodha, he said.

"The committee, after studying the case will submit its initial report within 10 days and the final one within a month so that the trial court's verdict can be challenged in the stipulated 90 days," Chouhan said.

He said his government would seek enhancement of the sentence of two years prison term awarded to then UCIL chairman Keshub Mahindra and six others in the gas tragedy case.

Pointing fingers on prosecution agency CBI, the chief minister asked why it didn't file a review petition in the apex court when it amended the charges to incorporate lenient sections of IPC including 304-A (causing death by negligence) from 304-II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder).

Chouhan alleged the CBI had not been serious in the extradition of Warren Anderson, the then chairman of Union Carbide Corporation, USA, who appears to have gone scot free in the case as he is still an absconder and has not subjected himself to trial.

"Only paper work has been done in this regard," he said.

On Monday, Chief Judicial Magistrate Mohan P Tiwari had convicted all the seven persons including former Union Carbide Chairman Keshub Mahindra, in the case and awarded them a maximum of two years imprisonment.

However, there was no word about 89-year-old Anderson, who lives in the US, in the judgement which came 23 years after the trial commenced.

On the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984, toxic leak from UCIL factory in Bhopal had left over 15,000 people dead and several others maimed.

The quantum of punishment given to the accused, 26 years after the world's worst industrial disaster, as well as Anderson escaping the judicial process has raised an outcry in the country.