Shanti in the Indian traditional and spiritual imagination signifies calm, assurance and repose. Yet the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI, for short) Act, now having obtained Presidential assent on 20^th December, after parliamentary passage, has produced the opposite effect. Instead of settling long-standing anxieties around nuclear energy, it has reopened unresolved questions about safety, accountability and justice—questions that Parliament believed it had cautiously addressed through the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010 (CLNDA). The unease surrounding the Bill is not ideological opposition to nuclear power or private enterprise; it is a response to how risk, responsibility and power are being redistributed in a system already strained by weak institutions.

The CLNDA of 2010: a Congress-led settlement with history

The CLNDA was enacted by a Congress-led government in the aftermath of the Indo–US civil nuclear agreement. Its political context was unmistakable. The memory of the Bhopal gas disaster—of inadequate compensation, prolonged litigation and perceived corporate escape—hovered over every parliamentary exchange.

The 2010 Act reflected a deliberate compromise. It accepted global norms of nuclear liability—strict and no-fault liability, channelling of claims to the operator, and statutory caps—while incorporating safeguards tailored to India's institutional fragility. Most notably, it preserved a limited right of recourse against suppliers for defective equipment or gross negligence, and made the State the guarantor of last resort beyond the operator's capped liability. This had led to a situation where Indian industrial vendors were initially reluctant in their participation in tenders for nuclear plant projects already underway and reportedly required lot of persuasion covertly and overtly for Indian industry's continued support.

These features were not doctrinal innovations; they were political assurances meant to compensate for slow courts, thin insurance markets and public distrust.

Congress then and now: contradiction or continuity?

The Congress party's present opposition to the SHANTI Bill is often portrayed as inconsistency. Having brought in the CLNDA, it now resists a law that seeks to normalise private participation further. Yet the apparent contradiction dissolves on closer scrutiny.

The CLNDA was defended precisely because it balanced India's nuclear ambitions with additional safeguards suited to Indian conditions. The current opposition is less to private participation itself than to what is seen as a dilution of those compensatory safeguards without a commensurate strengthening of regulatory independence, judicial efficiency or settlement architecture.

Energy aspirations and the economics that discipline entry

India's nuclear push must be read against the scale of its energy transition challenge. Nuclear power is increasingly projected as necessary for baseload stability and climate commitments. At the same time, the State faces clear fiscal constraints. In Indian conditions, the cost of establishing nuclear generation typically falls in the range of ₹15–20 crore per megawatt, placing a standard 1,000 MW reactor in the vicinity of ₹15,000–20,000 crore even before accounting for interest during construction or post-Fukushima safety enhancements. This single fact performs an important disciplining function. Unlike sectors where regulatory easing can invite speculative capital, nuclear energy does not permit casual entry. The scale of investment, the complexity of financing and the impossibility of early exit together ensure that only long-horizon capital with the capacity to absorb regulatory and political risk can participate. Whether ownership is public or private, the economic barrier itself excludes fly-by-night operators

Private capital and proximity to power

The political economy of private nuclear investment cannot be ignored. The expectation that participation will come largely from large conglomerates rooted in Gujarat and closely aligned with present centres of power is widely noted.

This, by itself, is not a case against private enterprise. Large infrastructure globally attracts capital with political proximity. The problem arises when concentrated economic power meets weak oversight. If private participation is inevitable, the response cannot be to reject it, but to strengthen regulatory, financial and adjudicatory insulation against capture and favouritism.

Private operators abroad and the institutional gap

Private operation is common in the United States, Germany and Japan. Liability caps exist in all three. What distinguishes them is institutional capacity—strong regulators, deep insurance markets, predictable courts and mature settlement ecosystems.

India seeks to import liability models without fully importing the institutional environment that sustains them.

Indian courts remain overburdened. Civil litigation routinely spans decades, particularly in technically complex mass-harm cases. In such a system, liability caps risk becoming justice-diluting mechanisms rather than pragmatic tools.

The CLNDA sought to offset this reality through no-fault liability and symbolic supplier accountability. The concern now is that these cushions are being reduced without parallel institutional reform.

Communities near hazardous installations are often economically vulnerable. They bear the highest risk exposure and possess the least capacity to litigate. For them, prolonged legal battles are untenable.

Without swift, credible non-judicial resolution, legal rights remain largely illusory.

The mediation gap: quality, not merely availability

A crucial but often misunderstood dimension of India's dispute-resolution deficit lies in the incomplete operationalisation of the Mediation Act. Mediation Councils are not mere case-allocation bodies. Their statutory role is foundational: to accredit mediation service providers, frame training modules, certify mediator competence and assure quality standards.

In the absence of fully functional Mediation Councils, a competitive, quality-assured mediation ecosystem simply does not exist. Without accreditation, training and certification, mediation lacks credibility—especially in high-stakes, technically complex disputes such as mass industrial or nuclear harm.

As a result, the mediation framework envisaged by Parliament has not come full circle. The absence of institutionalised quality assurance means that mediation cannot yet serve as a reliable alternative to litigation in catastrophic liability cases.

Supplier liability and accountability

Supplier liability under the CLNDA was limited but symbolically significant. It conveyed that suppliers of hazardous technology could not entirely externalise risk. Diluting this assurance in a system with slow courts and incomplete dispute-resolution infrastructure revives anxieties rooted in Bhopal.

Supporters argue that supplier liability is globally atypical. Critics respond that in India's context, contractual recourse without credible enforcement offers little comfort.

The SHANTI Act thus presents a question of sequencing. Private investment may be inevitable given energy aspirations and fiscal limits. But inevitability heightens—not diminishes—the need for independent regulation, transparent allocation of projects, credible liability enforcement and insulation from political favour.

Oversight, not ownership, is the real safeguard.

A reflective close

The invocation of Shanti is poignant, even ironic. For a law meant to normalise nuclear power, its effect has been to unsettle a society shaped by Bhopal, wary of judicial delay and alert to the dangers of concentrated power. Peace in nuclear governance cannot be legislated into existence. It must be earned through institutions that command trust. Until then, Shanti may describe the aspiration—but not yet the outcome.

(*The author acknowledges the valuable inputs from a senior researcher, who has several years of experience in R&D, academics and management aspects of radiation technology).

GIST | In Short

• The CLNDA of 2010 balanced global liability norms with India-specific safeguards shaped by institutional weakness.
• The SHANTI Act reflects energy ambitions and fiscal constraints but risks diluting compensatory safeguards.
• Absence of Mediation Councils means no quality-assured mediation ecosystem exists for mass-harm disputes.
• If private enterprise is inevitable, robust oversight—not rejection—is essential to ensure accountability and trust.

Views Are Personal.

Author is a Former Judge of High Court of Punjab And Haryana.

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