With Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee joining the Opposition BJP and the Left in opposing the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill and many ruling UPA coalition MPs absent from the House at the time of scheduled introduction, the UPA government on Friday deferred the Bill?s introduction in Lok Sabha where it was listed in the business for the day.
Although minister of state in the Prime Minister?s Office Prithviraj Chavan later argued that the introduction was deferred because some members had raised objections that had to be ?examined?, the ruling party was actually forced to defer it as it did not have the requisite numbers to face a division of votes in the House in case the Opposition parties insisted on it at the time of the introduction of the Bill.
There were already notices from several members, including one from BJP?s Yashwant Sinha, against the introduction of the Bill. Congress sources later said that the party would issue show cause notices to at least 35 MPs and ministers who were absent from the House. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi had been informed about the ?distress? situation in the House before the decision was taken to defer the Bill.
Banerjee was learnt to have conveyed her reservation against the Bill at a meeting with a senior government functionary last week. With the women?s reservation Bill having already witnessed a coordinated protest by the Yadav triumvirate?Lalu Prasad of RJD, Mulayam Singh Yadav of SP and the Sharad Yadav of JD(U) ?the government was wary of introducing the legislation on nuclear damage liability that could lead to another united opposition front consisting of the BJP, Left and a UPA constituent, the TMC.
The Bill is now likely to be tabled in Lok Sabha after the recess next month. A day before the scheduled introduction of the Bill, the Prime Minister had called up Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj to try and build a political consensus on the Bill. She was said to have refused to support it. National security advisor Shivshankar Menon had earlier met senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley to brief him about the contents of the Bill.
The NSA later met former Attorney General Soli J Sorabjee whose reported opinion given to environmental group Greenpeace formed the basis of the BJP?s objection against the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill. The eminent jurist had reportedly cited Supreme Court judgments regarding polluter-pays-principle to oppose provisions of the proposed Bill. Sorabjee, however, said his meeting with the NSA was in a ?different context? and not about this Bill. Asked about his opinion about the Bill, he told The Indian Express, ?I am not opposed to the Bill in principle, but there are some provisions of the Bill I am not comfortable with.?
Earlier in the day, senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha had written to Lok Sabha Secretary General, raising objection against the introduction of the Bill in the House on grounds of Constitutional validity. Citing the Supreme Court ruling in 1996 in the case of Indian Council for Enviro-Legal Action, Sinha stated, ?It introduced the Polluter Pays Principle under which it is not the role of government to meet the costs involved in either prevention of such damage or in carrying out remedial action.? According to Sinha?s letter, the Bill not only limits the liability, but also transfers a large part of the liability to the government- in other words, the tax payer.
Senior government functionaries, however, maintained that the opinion of the Solicitor General had already been taken and the Bill did not violate the Constitution as claimed by the BJP leader. Prithviraj Chavan maintained that the UPA government was only carrying forward the initiatives taken by the NDA regime.