NEW YORK— The battle over ‘where the settlement of massive monetary claims resulting from Union Carbide’s Bhopal gas leak should be heard, in the United States or India, was waged in Federal Court Friday.

“This case would be a deathblow to the judicial system in India,” attorney F. Lee Bailey told a packed courtroom, adding that, the United States ought to shoulder the burden of cleaning this mess up.”

Bailey is one of four attorneys, including one for the Indian government on a committee representing a representative oeys for victims of the disastrous gas leak at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, Dec. 23, 1984.

More than 2,000 people died and another 200,000 were injured after the chemical methyl isocyanate leaked.

The key issue in the case concerns whether or not the Bhopal pesticide plant was controlled by Union Carbide headquarters in Danbury, Conn., or by its Indian subsidiary in Bombay, Union Carides wants the case tried in India

There was no indication when a ruling on the jurisdictional question would be made.

“Union Carbide in Danbury is the architect of the wrong that causes us to be here today,” Bailey said,

Bailey said witnesses could make depositions and testify on videotape. He also told Justice John Keenan that getting documents relating to the case from the Indian government was “nothing to lose sleep over.”

‘A delegation of the Indian government were in the courtroom during the daylong hearing in US. District Court in Foley Square.

Union Carbide attorney Bud Holman argued that it is not clear ‘who is responsible for the disaster He suggested that sabotage, perhaps by Sikh terrorists, may have been involved in the leak.

The company also. maintains that all the people involved are in India and that 4,000 suits are already pending in Indian courts.

If the claims are heard in this country Union Carbide’s estimated $10 billion in assets would be exposed to a judgement, instead of the subsidiary’s estimated assets of less than $100 million.

Lalit Gadhia, one of the attorneys for the victims, said he recently returned from a visit to Bhopal, where he saw people unable to walk because of neurological damage brought on from in baling the gas.

“Children are now the primary read winners in many families because parents cannot work”, Gandhi said.

Article extracted from this publication >> January 10, 1986