24

Dec

SHANTI Act: Easing Liability Norms Fraught with Danger

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By rushing the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India through the two houses of Parliament during the just-ended winter session and ignoring the opposition pleas to send it to a select committee for proper scrutiny, the Modi government has clearly established that it had some ulterior motive other than to protect, preserve, promote and advance the national interests.

One of the main objectives of the new Act is to attract foreign companies, particularly those from the United States, to build nuclear reactors, thereby opening doors in the sensitive sector. SHANTI encourages private companies to participate and potentially allow foreign funding to flow into India’s nuclear industry.

Two days after Parliament cleared the SHANTI, which opened doors to private participation in the nuclear energy sector easing stringent liability norms by capping operator’s liability for a nuclear accident to Rs 3000 crore, US President Donald Trump signed in to law the National Defense Authorisation Act (NDAA) advising Secretary of State to work with the Indian government and “.. align (India’s) domestic nuclear liability rules with international norms”.

Were these two developments in New Delhi and Washington mere coincidences or did they reflect a tacit understanding between US President Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, rather promise made by India to the US?    

While the SHANTI aligns India closer to the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for nuclear damage and makes it consonant with the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for nuclear damage, Washington was pushing New Delhi to such an alignment.                       

The article criticises the Modi government for rushing the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Act through Parliament without detailed scrutiny. It argues that the law opens India’s sensitive nuclear sector to private and foreign, especially US, companies by easing nuclear liability norms and capping operator liability.
Wednesday Wisdom
By Satish Misra
The timing of the Act’s passage alongside provisions in the US National Defense Authorization Act calling for alignment of India’s nuclear liability rules with international standards has raised suspicions of tacit Indo-US coordination. Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh and Shashi Tharoor allege the law undermines the unanimously passed 2010 liability framework, favours US interests, weakens safety safeguards, and burdens taxpayers. They warn that privatisation without transparency or public oversight could compromise national interest and public safety.

Looking at the US defence law, the Congress was not wrong when it claimed that India’s new nuclear law, which was rushed through the winter session of parliament, was rewritten in Delhi with Washington firmly in mind.

Interestingly, the US defence law handed the Congress the means to claim that India’s new nuclear law was passed through the two houses of parliament only to favour Modi’s friend, Trump.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh alleged that recent changes to India’s nuclear liability framework were pushed through Parliament to align domestic law with US interests, citing a document signed by Trump.

Ramesh pointed to a provision inside the United States’ National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2026, which Trump signed into law. The Act runs over 3,100 pages. Page 1,912, Ramesh pointed out, refers to a “joint assessment between the United States and India on Nuclear Liability Rules.

“Now we know for sure why the Prime Minister bulldozed the SHANTI Bill through Parliament earlier this week,” Ramesh wrote on X, referring to the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Bill, 2025.

The legislation, Ramnesh said, “did away with key provisions of the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010 that had been passed unanimously by Parliament.

The nuclear liability law is believed to have been one of the major reasons the US-India nuclear deal, signed by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, did not fructify.

“It was to restore SHANTI with his once good friend,” Ramesh added, in a swipe at Modi’s public bonhomie with Trump. “The SHANTI Act may well be called the TRUMP Act – The Reactor Use and Management Promise Act.”

The mechanism is tasked with assessing the implementation of the 2008 civil nuclear cooperation agreement, discussing opportunities for India “to align domestic nuclear liability rules with international norms”, and developing strategies for bilateral and multilateral diplomatic engagement around those changes.

The Congress leader’s comments came after the Rajya Sabha cleared the SHANTI Bill, following its passage in the Lok Sabha earlier in the week. The Union government has said the law is aimed at reducing India’s dependence on fossil fuels and expanding the country’s atomic energy capacity, including by opening the tightly controlled civil nuclear sector to private participation.

During the debate in the Upper House on Thursday, Ramesh had opposed the Bill and had argued that it was being rushed without adequate consultation on a matter of long-term national importance.

Accusing the BJP-led government of abandoning the position taken by its own senior leaders when the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act was enacted in 2010, Ramesh also urged the government to standardise India’s indigenous 700 MW nuclear reactors rather than importing designs from multiple foreign vendors.

“We are self-reliant in 700 MW plants,” he said, warning that a “vendor-driven bill” could meet the same fate as the three farm laws that were repealed after widespread protests.

When the SHANTI bill was being debated in Parliament, Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor had also strongly opposed it, calling it a “dangerous leap into privatised nuclear energy.”

What kind of law is this, Tharoor had asked, citing the bill’s cap on liability, burden on taxpayers, possibility of exclusion of genuine victims of nuclear accident, and that such victims would not be able to file complaints.

Shashi Tharoor, the Congress MP who is a hot favourite with the BJP because he has been speaking on many issues in a different voice from his party, came out strongly against the SHANTI that the Modi government had tabled.

The new bill is to replace the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010, to open the doors of India’s nuclear industry to private players.

Tharoor made his arguments against the bill.

“This kind of broad subjective exemption power undermines the very safeguards the legislation claims to establish,” the Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram said. “It will provide laxity in due diligence in a hugely critical sector, and private players will lobby for exemptions to engage in profiteering at the expense of public safety.”

“We cannot justify this under any democratic framework. Multiple sections are granting sweeping powers on vague grounds. The bill lacks an enforceable public participation mechanism. No regular public reporting of safety inspections or radiation monitoring. No mandatory tabling in Parliament… the SHANTI bill represents a dangerous leap into privatised nuclear atomic energy, he pointed out.

In light of the above facts and the chronology of SHANTI, I leave it to my readers to pronounce their judgment whether it was an anti-national act or not.

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