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Ansari orders inquiry into ‘mishandling' of report

Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI: Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari on Friday ordered an inquiry into the “mishandling” of the Standing Committee report of the Ministry of Science and Technology on the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill.

It is learnt that Rajya Sabha Secretary-General V.K. Agnihotri has been asked to work out the modalities in consultation with the Chairman.

It seems Mr. Ansari was unhappy with the controversy created by the “mishandling” of the final draft of the report and insinuations in the press that the word “and” may have been deliberately introduced in it after it was finalised by the committee members.

The committee is a Rajya Sabha panel, chaired by T. Subbarami Reddy.

The word “and” between clauses 17(a) and 17(b) led to the supplier liability conditions spelt out in 17(b) becoming contingent upon 17(a) and almost “redundant,” as the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said.

The fact that the word “and” was there in the text that was finalised on August 17, last meeting of the Standing Committee, becomes apparent from the fact that its CPI(M) member Saman Pathak, gave a dissent note demanding the deletion of “and.”

Clearly, that demand was not met as the other members did not agree. And that included the BJP members.

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