NEW YORK - It has been seven months since Union Carbide agreed to provide $5 million for emergency relief in Bhopal , India, where a catastrophic chemical accident killed and injured thousands nearly a year ago.

But the money remains in the corporate treasury while lawyers argue what to do.

Attorneys for the victims have said that agreement on a plan for the emergency fund is close. Similar claims, however, were made last summer and turned out to be wrong.

An estimated 2,000 people died and 200,000 were injured last Dec. 4 when a cloud of poison gas escaped from a pesticide plant operated by a Union Carbide subsidiary in Bhopal . It was considered the worst industrial accident in history.

Most of the victims of the methyl isocyanate leak were poor people who lived in slums around the plant.

U.S. District Judge John F. Keenan, who has been placed in charge of more than 90 lawsuits filed in this country against Union Carbide, urged the company last April to provide money for relief aid immediately rather than wait, as is the normal practice, for the lawsuits to be resolved. He said emergency help from the company was a matter of "fundamental human decency" and would not be an admission of liability.

Amid the intense publicity surrounding the accident and the judge's request, Union Carbide quickly agreed to provide the funds. But then the squabbling began.

First the Indian government rejected the $5 million, claiming Union Carbide had attached onerous record-keeping requirements. One was that the government identify all the victims and their injuries, a move that could bolster the company's claim that the extent of the injuries has been exaggerated.

Victims' lawyers then turned to the Red Cross, and arrangements progressed to the point that an imminent agreement was announced in August.

After that, as far as the public record goes, nothing happened. There has been no explanation for the delay.

Jack S. Hoffinger, a New York lawyer who is the court-appointed liaison with the executive committee of victims' lawyers, said Sunday that arrangements with the Red Cross should be completed shortly.

Another legal question remaining is whether lawsuits growing out of the accident belong in the United States, where even the Indian government chose to sue, or in India, which the company maintains is the proper venue.