A former union cabinet minister today said that there were "rogue" elements in the government in 1984 who helped former Union Carbide CEO Warren Anderson ' flee the country after the Bhopal gas tragedy.

"Yes," replied former information and broadcasting minister Vasant Sathe when asked about the possibility of presence of some rogue elements in the government who let Anderson escape after the toxic disaster.

"Yes, I accept that. It was a mistake (to allow Anderson to leave India). It was an illegality," Sathe said on Karan Thapar's India Tonight programme on CNBC.

"Anderson's release was absolutely wrong and illegal and he was helped to go out of India by some authority in India. But I cannot make an allegation against the particular person," he said.

Sathe said if the then Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao had been consulted, this would not have happened.

He further said "I did not know what happened. But it is obvious that Anderson was helped to get out of India."

Former CBI officer B R Lall, who was the officer incharge of the probe in 1994-95 said the authorities failed to get Anderson extradited to India.

"We did not take cognisance of the order (to extradite Anderson) because all extradition things has to go through MEA after the court matters," he said.

"The order came from Ministry of External Affairs. I do not know whether that was from a Section Officer of MEA, Secretary or Minister. In lower ranks it was not known," Lall said when asked about who might have directed CBI not to pursue Anderson's extradition.

"I actually would not know what happened in the MEA because I was transferred. My role was over as we wrote back that we should be allowed to go ahead with the extradition process," Lall said.

Chief Judicial Magistrate Mohan P Tiwari has yesterday convicted ex-Union Carbide India chairman Keshub Mahindra and six others and sentenced them to two years imprisonment nearly 26 years after world's worst industrial disaster left over 15,000 dead on the intervening night of December 2 and 3.