By IANS,
New Delhi : The government Monday deferred the introduction of the nuclear liability bill in view of fierce opposition from the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Left, and offered to discuss the contentious document that is key to making the India-US nuclear deal functional.
“The government is ready to discuss with the opposition the legal competence and the constitutional validity of the bill to evolve a consensus,” Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Prithviraj Chavan told reporters outside Parliament House.
Chavan said the opposition could not question the merit of the bill at this stage. “The merit of the bill could be discussed on the floor or in the standing committee.”
Speaker Meira Kumar said she had received intimation from Chavan that the “government doesn’t intend to introduce the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill today”.
The bill seeks to limit the liability of a nuclear plant’s operator in case of an accident at Rs.500 crore; if compensation is assessed to be more than this, the remainder amount is supposed to be paid by the government.
Though it was listed in Monday’s business of the Lok Sabha, it was deferred in view of the trouble from the BJP that found another common cause with the Left parties to target the government.
The BJP had moved a withdrawal notice against it. BJP leader L.K. Advani also said the house should be informed why the government did not go ahead with the bill after listing it.
“It is the duty of the government to inform the house about it. It was in the listed business,” he said.
The BJP and the Left parties allege that the government was rushing with the bill under pressure from the US. But the minister denied this.
“There is no question of American pressure. India is not a member of any international (nuclear) convention and India wants to become a member,” Chavan said.
He said the Nuclear Suppliers Group, of which India wants to become a member, insisted on the framing of a domestic compensatory payment legislation.
He said in the absence of such a law, nuclear plant operators would not take on themselves the responsibility for compensation payment in the event of an accident.
“Because of these two reasons, the government has to legislate this bill,” Chavan said.
He added that India didn’t have a well-defined compensation payment regulation for catastrophe in industrial units, particularly in nuclear and chemical plants, and the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy litigation went on for decades because of this.
The liability law is one of the key requirements for the India-US nuclear deal, concluded in September 2008, to get the accord operational. Private companies in the US are not willing to sell nuclear equipment to India without such a law in place.
According to the draft bill, the operator would not be liable for any nuclear damage if the incident was caused by “grave national disaster of exceptional character”, armed conflict or act of terrorism and if a person sufferd on account of his own negligence.
The bill also provides for the establishment of Nuclear Damage Claims Commission, which will have one or more claims commissioners for a specified area. The claims commissioner shall have powers of a civil judge.
The Left parties say the bill “is a harmful piece of legislation meant to serve the interests of the US and its nuclear industry”.
“It is a blatant attempt to protect US suppliers from claims of liability and compensation. The clauses of the bill are so devised as to practically make it impossible to assign liability to the supplier,” the Left parties said in a joint statement.
The BJP has “serious reservations because it caps the liability of American firms”.
“We will force the government to refer it to a standing committee,” BJP leader Yashwant Sinha said.