( 1 ) WHILE hearing Civil Revision No. 224 of 1987, Preferred by the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) against the Union of India (UIO) and others, arising out of interlocutory application No. 19 in the Gas claim Case No. 1113 of 1986, pending in the Court of District Judge, Bhopal, seeking to restrain the Union of India and others from interrogating S. Sundara Rajan, a Senior Instrumentation Engineer and subjecting him to the detector test, the learned single Judge suo motu issued a show cause notice to the parties under S. 24 (1) (b) (i) of the Code of Civil Procedure, as to why the claim cases be not withdrawn from the file of the District Judge and tried in this Court.

( 2 ) ON the night intervening 2nd and 3rd Dec. 1984, there was leakage of Methyl Isocynate, a highly toxic gas, in the plant of the Union Carbide India. Ltd. (UCIL), resulting in death of over 2500 persons, creating permanent impairments to thousands of persons anti affecting a large Section of the population of the Bhopal city, said to be the worst industrial disaster in the world history. The Police registered criminal case against the officials of the UCIL on 6-12-1984. Individual claimants filed large number of claim cases against the UCC in the U. S. A. between Jan. and Feb. 1985. On 20-2-1985, the Parliament enacted the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster (Processing of Claims) Act, 1985, and on 8-4-1985, UOI pursuant to the Act, filed a claim for recovery of damages against the UCC in the U. S. A. In the meanwhile, many individual claimants also filed claim cases, before the District Judge, Bhopal, and the UCI joined in those cases as co-claimant. The District Judge, Bhopal, stayed all these cases on 31-12-1985 on the application of the UOI. However, Judge Shri Kenan of the District Court of Southern New York, on 12-5-1986, upheld the objection of the UCC and dismissed the claim cases on the ground of forum Non Convenience, but put the UCC to give consent to submit to the jurisdiction of the Courts of India and to satisfy the judgement rendered by any Court in India and to be subject to discovery under the rule of procedure in the U. S. A. Appeals were filed by the UCC, the UOI and the individual claimants before the U. S. Court of Appeals, the UCC's appeal being on the limited question of satisfying the judgement of Indian Court and discovery. On 5-9-1986, the UOI filed the present claim case before the District Judge, Bhopal, on behalf of all the claimants as Parens Patriae under the said Act. the UCC entered appearance in the case on 30-10-1986. The Court of appeals in U. S. A. allowed the appeal of the UCC and rejected the appeals of the individual claimants and the UOI. The appeals Court held that in the absence of agreement, the parties will be limited by the applicable discovery rules of the Indian Court in which the claims will be pending. Further appeals were filed by the individual claimants and the UOI in the U. S. Supreme Court and these appeals were rejected on 5-10-1987.

( 3 ) THE UCC filed counter-claim before the District Judge, Bhopal, on 17-11-1986 and filed its written statement in the present claim case on 16-12-1986. The UCC also filed I. A. Nos. 5 and 21 for election of forum by the UOI and I. A. No. 12 for better particulars, the UCC also filed I. A. No. 19 for restraining the C. B. I. from interrogating S. Sundarajan. The UOI also filed certain interlocutory applications to restrain the UCC from disposing of the assets. On 11-3-1987, the District Judge fixed schedule of hearing of the interlocutory applications. The UOI was directed to file a statement of its election by the next date and I. A. No. 19 was rejected on 3-4-1987. The Civil Revision No. 224 of 1987 was filed in this Court on 11-6-1987 during vacations. On 6-5-1987, I. A. No. 12 could not be heard due to strike by the Bhopal lawyers for the establishment of a Bench of the High Court at Bhopal. On 2-7-1987, the UOI was again directed to give a fresh categorical ele