N-bill: Another face-off coming

This inclusion of “intent,” Opposition leaders said,will make it virtually impossible to act against suppliers. The Government’s argument is that this is a “legitimate cushion” since it will be very difficult to attract suppliers if there is any further tightening of terms.

This amended Section 17 (b) in the Bill was circulated to MPs this evening and is slated to be brought for discussion and passage in the Lok Sabha on August 25.

It states: “(The operator shall have a right of recourse where)…the nuclear incident has resulted as a consequence of an act of supplier or his employees,done with the intent to cause nuclear damage,and such act includes supply of equipment or material with patent or latent defects or substandard services”.

While Opposition leaders said this evening that they were yet to go through the fineprint after the Cabinet approval to the Bill, the Standing Committee report on the subject had sought to dilute the same provision in another manner by according primacy to the commercial contract between the Supplier and the Operator when it came to question of the operator’s Right to Recourse.

This was done by adding “and” at the end of Section 17 (a) of the Bill which said: “such right is expressly provided for in a contract in writing”.

The BJP and the Left threatened not to support the Bill. Under pressure,the government yesterday dropped the “and” from the draft legislation. Prithviraj Chavan,Minister of State for Science & Technology (independent charge),said that concerns of major political parties on the Bill had been addressed and 18 amendments were incorporated.