Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 20 (IANS) Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari has asked a senior official to look into the “mishandling” of a parliamentary panel’s report on the civil nuclear liability bill, official sources said Friday.
The sources said that Rajya Sabha Secretary General V.K. Agnihotri will look into the matter.

The standing committee on science and technology, headed by Congress Rajya Sabha member from Andhra Pradesh T. Subbarami Reddy, tabled its report on the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill, 2010, in Parliament Wednesday.

However, a day after the report was tabled, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and the Left strongly objected to the presence of word “and” in the recommendations of the committee relating to Clause 17 of the bill.

Sources said BJP leader Arun Jaitley gave a note to Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Prithviraj Chavan, saying that the word “and” did not exist in the original bill introduced in the Lok Sabha and was not discussed during the party’s discussions with the government on the bill or in the standing committee deliberations.

BJP leaders told the government Thursday the recommendation of the parliamentary panel to introduce the word “and” in clause 17 should not be accepted as it reduces the efficacy of subsequent provisions in the clause, which relates to the liability of a supplier in case of an accident.

The recommendation relating to the word “and” figured on page 30 of the standing committee report, which was stapled separately in the copies circulated to the media with the original page having been struck off with a pen.

“The committee, therefore recommends that Clause 17 (a) may end with the word ‘and’ and the Clause 17 (b) should be modified… ” said the top paragraph of the stapled page.