An agreement signed by the government with a supplier of a nuclear power plant to waive off its liability in the event of an accident will be null and void if it contradicts the law, the Supreme Court held on Thursday.
“If the government enters into an agreement which is contrary to the statute (the Civil Liability For Nuclear Damage Act, 2010) then it would be void,” said a bench of Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Dipak Misra.
The court’s observation came while it was hearing a petition seeking to restrain the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NCPIL) from making the Koodankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu operational.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan contended before the bench that while the maximum liability for the supplier of a nuclear plant is `1,500 crores under the Act, the government has waived it for the Russian supplier of the reactors at Koodankulam.
He also argued that the controversial plant has come up at the site in violation of various norms and it lacks even basic safety measures. “The spent fuel will be stored at the site for seven years. This can be very catastrophic for the environment as nuclear radiation can seep into soil and water. One of the reasons for enormous release of toxic radiation at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan was the storage of spent fuel there,” he said.
Mr Bhushan said even the US, being superior to us in terms of nuclear technology, has failed to find a permanent solution to the problem of storage of spent nuclear fuel.
He said when the clearance was given to the government in 1989 to establish and operate the plant, the site was not known. Moreover, the rules for such clearance were changed in 1994. “While clearance was taken in 1989, construction of the plant started in 2001, after a gap of over 12 years. Fresh clearance was certainly required as per the new rules,” he said.
He further said the government had bent over backwards to please the Russian suppliers of nuclear reactors in violation of the law and had slapped charges of sedition on peaceful protesters at the site.