New Delhi, June 15 (IANS) The government is understood to have relented on the opposition’s demand for retaining a key provision in the proposed nuclear liability bill that gives the operator of a nuclear plant ‘legal recourse’ to act against suppliers in case their gross negligence results in an accident.
With the Bhopal gas verdict reviving a fresh debate on the civil nuclear liability law, the parliamentary standing committee on science and technology met here Tuesday and scrutinized different provisions of the contentious legislation.
The BJP and Left members of the committee, to which the nuclear bill was referred after a deadlock in the parliament, questioned a note at the last meeting which contained a proposal for amending Clause 17 (b) of the nuclear liability bill.
The clause envisages that the operator would have legal recourse if a nuclear accident results from the ‘wilful act or gross negligence on the part of the supplier of the material, equipment or services, or of his employees’.
Regretting the move, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Srikumar Banerjee, who is also the secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy, told the committee that the government was withdrawing that note and assured that the original clause would be retained as part of the bill.
Sources said the note, circulated at the June 8 meeting of the standing committee said that clause 17 (b) had been deleted while clause 17 (a) and (c) had been retained.
Xlause 17 (a) provides that the operator could have the legal recourse if ‘such right is expressly provided in the contract in writing’. Clause 17 (c) says the recourse could be taken if ‘the nuclear incident has resulted from the act of commission or omission of a person done with the intent to cause nuclear damage.’
In a damage control exercise, the government later tried to pacify the opposition by saying that these amendments were only ‘suggestions’.
‘There’s work in progress. Nothing is final yet,’ added the sources.
The opposition members of the committee also renewed the pitch for raising the Rs.500 crore cap on the compensation to be paid by an operator of a nuclear power plant in case of an accident.
They also asked the government to revise the bill in the light of public outrage sparked by the Bhopal gas verdict that sentenced seven accused to only two years in prison 26 years after the tragedy.
