In recent months, a crescendo of official voices and high-level declarations have been demystifying the fact that the Government of India is preparing to recalibrate its legal framework governing the civil nuclear sector. It has been widely reported that the government is in the process of proposing substantial amendments to the Atomic Energy Act, 1962, and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010 – laws that have long defined the contours of India’s nuclear regime.
The Union Budget for 2025–26 first dropped a hint, with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announcing a major policy thrust on nuclear expansion and a dedicated mission for the development of Small Modular Reactors. This was reinforced with unusual candour by External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar, who, speaking at the Carnegie Global Technology Summit, acknowledged that the present liability law had failed to install confidence in the international nuclear industry and must therefore be re-examined. “What’s the good of a great initiative,” he asked rhetorically, “if it doesn’t deliver the goods on the ground?”
In keeping with this declared intent, Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh confirmed in Parliament that committees have been constituted – comprising experts from the Department of Atomic Energy, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, NITI Aayog, Ministry of External Affairs, and the Ministry of Law and Justice – to deliberate on these amendments. These deliberations mark a watershed moment in India’s nuclear story, potentially opening the gates for private participation and international investment in a domain that has remained a sovereign monopoly since 1958.
These amendments are likely not only to attract private investment but also to revive the dormant Indo–U.S. Civil Nuclear Deal, aligning domestic law with global norms and paving the way for India’s clean energy transition. Recognising the bottlenecks posed by the current liability regime, which has long deterred foreign participation, some changes in legal regime are deemed vital for achieving the ambitious target of 100 GW of nuclear power by 2047. To this end, a Rs 20,000 crore Nuclear Energy Mission was announced in the Union Budget 2025–26, with plans to operationalise five Small Modular Reactors by 2033.
In the genesis of postcolonial India, where dust still lingered on the ruins of empire, the nation’s dreams took shape not merely in the fields and factories but in the heart of the atom. The early decades saw the nuclear project clothed in secrecy, steered by the wisdom of Dr. Homi Bhabha and watched over earlier by The Atomic Energy Act of 1948 and later by the Atomic Energy Act of 1962 – a formidable piece of legislation that granted the State almost sacred custodianship over the atom’s mighty potential.
Yet, like fire that warms a home but can raze a village, nuclear energy has always demanded from its masters double-edged morality – development tethered to responsibility, innovation tempered with accountability. As India’s hunger for energy grew, the State’s grip over this realm began to appear more like a locked vault than a steward’s embrace. What was once a protective hand became, with time, a throttling clasp, dissuading investment, innovation, and international cooperation.
In 2008, India stepped into the light of international legitimacy with the Indo–U.S. Civil Nuclear Agreement – an unprecedented diplomatic blossom in a previously barren garden. For the first time since India’s exclusion from the nuclear mainstream following its 1974 test, New Delhi was granted a waiver by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), allowing it to engage in global nuclear commerce despite being outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It was a moment akin to the unsealing of a temple door long thought barred.
The deal was both symbolic and practical – it marked India’s rise as a responsible nuclear power and unlocked potential access to uranium, technology, and reactors. Yet, while the key was turned in Washington, the vault back home remained jammed by India’s own legal architecture -particularly the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act (2010), whose provisions, especially Section 17(b), created legal terrain too jagged for foreign suppliers to tread upon.
Today, as India sets its compass towards 100 GW of nuclear power by 2047 – a centennial vision for a developed, de-carbonised Bharat – it must sand down the legal thorns that have grown wild around its nuclear garden. The laws governing this sector must be revised, not in the spirit of surrender, but in the pursuit of synchrony – with international standards, with investment imperatives, and with the practical realities of nuclear deployment.
This legal renaissance begins with three instruments: The Atomic Energy Act, 1962, the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage (CLND) Act, 2010, and the CLND Rules, 2011. Each, in its own way, must be rewritten carefully, reverently, and with ink drawn from the well of both wisdom and ambition.
For decades, the Atomic Energy Act has stood as the unyielding granite on which India’s nuclear empire rests. Section 3, in particular, grants the Central Government exclusive rights to develop and operate nuclear installations. In the cold war world of the 1960s, this exclusivity was a shield against foreign dependence. But in today’s interconnected global order, it has become a gate that bars even friendly hands.
To transform India’s nuclear ecosystem from a state-run bastion into a dynamic, investor-ready field, Section 3 of the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 must be reimagined – not with abdication, but with architectural finesse. The amendment must allow authorised private entities, whether Indian or foreign, to design, build, and operate nuclear power plants under the watchful aegis of a statutory regulator. This is not a dilution of sovereignty; rather, it is its recalibration – from monopolist to magistrate, from sole executor to sovereign enabler.
The global tide has already turned. The United Kingdom, under its Energy Act 2004, permits private nuclear operators regulated by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR). Similarly, in South Korea, private conglomerates like KEPCO lead nuclear construction under strict state licensing. India must draw from these models and shift its role from wielder of every spanner to drafter of every blueprint. The regulator, duly insulated from executive control, will ensure that safety and non-proliferation remain inviolable. The amendment, thus, would not dismantle the State’s edifice but expand its dome—allowing sunlight in, while keeping the sanctum secure.
Further, Section 14, which addresses safety regulation and licensing, may be reimagined to empower a truly independent Nuclear Regulatory Authority, separate from the Department of Atomic Energy. Section 14 of the Atomic Energy Act, 1962, which currently anchors licensing and regulatory oversight, must now be recast with constitutional clarity to birth a genuinely independent Nuclear Regulatory Authority – one structurally and functionally severed from the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). The present arrangement, wherein the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) operates under the shadow of the very executive it ought to scrutinise, breeds an institutional paradox: a referee donning the jersey of the team it’s meant to police. This model, however, is anachronistic. In the United States, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) functions autonomously from the Department of Energy, its independence codified in statute and protected by checks. Similarly, Canada’s Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) enjoys direct parliamentary accountability. India, too, must inscribe such autonomy into law. Section 14 should establish the regulator as a statutory body, with transparent appointments, fixed tenure, and independent budgetary control. In doing so, India will not only bolster investor confidence – vital in a climate welcoming private participation – but also reaffirm its constitutional promise that public safety shall never be subjugated to commercial expedience. Independence, after all, is not a luxury in nuclear regulation – it is the first line of defence.
Lastly, Section 16 of the 1962 Act, which vests the Central Government with sweeping authority over the handling, transport, and disposal of radioactive substances, stands as a provision of both immense power and profound opacity. If the gates of India’s nuclear realm are to be opened even partially to private actors – who, unlike sovereign agencies, operate under the watchful scrutiny of markets, shareholders, and international financiers – then this section must be tempered with the steel of transparency and the clarity of codified norms. The atom, after all, does not discriminate between public and private hands when it escapes containment.
In its current form, Section 16 gives the Government discretion over “prescribing the manner in which radioactive substances shall be disposed of,” but this discretion must now be harmonised with predictability. It must be expanded to include explicit regulatory obligations related to radioactive waste management, long-term storage and monitoring, and post-closure institutional controls. In other words, the law must not merely authorise the disposal of radioactive waste; it must choreograph it with scientific rigour, environmental accountability, and intergenerational justice.
India may draw inspiration here from mature nuclear jurisdictions such as France and Sweden, where legal regimes impose cradle-to-grave responsibility on nuclear operators. In France, for instance, the Loi Bataille of 1991 (named after its sponsor Christian Bataille) mandated a detailed national programme for radioactive waste management, culminating in a deep geological repository programme under Andra, the French National Radioactive Waste Management Agency. Similarly, Sweden’s Nuclear Activities Act places the burden of developing and funding long-term disposal solutions squarely on the shoulders of the nuclear industry, with a waste fund established in advance to cover the costs of decommissioning and waste isolation for centuries to come.
In contrast, India’s current legal framework remains embryonic in such forward-planning. While the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and NPCIL have developed practices for interim storage and vitrification, these are administrative protocols rather than statutory duties. The law must now require that any entity licensed to operate a nuclear facility must also submit a decommissioning plan and waste management strategy – pre-approved, budgeted, and time-bound – before the first shovel strikes the earth.
The issue of plant decommissioning, often considered the forgotten child of nuclear regulation, must be brought into legislative daylight. Across the world, as the first generation of nuclear power plants age, countries like the United States, under its Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), have codified detailed decommissioning protocols, including financial assurance mechanisms, public consultation procedures, and environmental monitoring for decades post-closure. India’s Section 16 must echo this maturity. The statute should require private and public operators alike to maintain decommissioning funds in escrow, insulated from business cycles or corporate distress, to ensure that dismantling and site restoration are not left to future governments or – worse – the public exchequer.
Finally, nuclear security – that most sensitive and sacred of state responsibilities – must be entrenched in Section 16 with provisions that mandate compliance with internationally accepted standards, such as the IAEA’s Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources. Where private operators are involved, the law must stipulate compulsory background verification, physical protection measures, cyber-security protocols for control systems, and periodic audits by an independent regulator.
In short, Section 16 must evolve from a clause of command into a compass of compliance. In an age when nuclear energy is not merely a technological feat but a political and environmental covenant with the future, it is incumbent upon the law to anticipate, to safeguard, and to bind. For in the words of the French moralist La Rochefoucauld, “To foresee is the virtue of kings.” And it is time our law foresees the complexities of a nuclear landscape populated not only by sovereigns but by partners.
The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage (CLND) Act, while noble in intention, has acted as both shield and shackle. Its most controversial aspect – Section 17(b) – grants the operator the right of recourse against suppliers in the event of an accident caused by latent or patent defects or gross negligence.
This clause was born from the trauma of Bhopal, where absence of liability led to generational suffering. Yet, in nuclear commerce, where global norms channel all liability to operators, this clause is a thistle in the bouquet. Foreign suppliers like GE-Hitachi and Areva have stayed away, unwilling to risk exposure to unlimited or unforeseeable claims.
The amendment must strike a Solomonic balance. It should retain the right of recourse but restrict it strictly to what is contractually agreed between operator and supplier. Thus, Section 17(b) must be revised to eliminate the ambiguous and litigious language of “gross negligence” and replace it with the clarity of commercial terms. This will align India with the Convention on Supplementary Compensation (CSC) and reassure potential investors and insurers that they will not be hunted by the spectres of unpredictable litigation. Moreover, Section 6, which caps operator liability at Rs 1,500 crore, must be indexed to inflation and reactor scale, while retaining the Government’s support through the Nuclear Liability Fund. This will ensure that victims are adequately compensated without breaking the financial back of an operator.
If statutes are the bones of law, then rules are its sinews – flexible, essential, and often overlooked until strained. The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Rules, 2011, though subordinate legislation, serve as the daily compass guiding the implementation of the CLND Act. Of particular importance is Rule 24, which governs the contractual relationships between operators and suppliers. Yet, in its current form, it suffers from a troubling vagueness, leaving critical matters – such as the scope and duration of supplier liability – open to interpretation, and therefore, to litigation and hesitation.
To attract serious foreign and private investment, these rules must be stitched with precision. First, the amended Rule 24 should mandate uniform model supplier contracts that clearly articulate the nature, scope, and quantum of liability, along with the conditions that may trigger recourse. This mirrors the approach taken by the United Kingdom, where the Office for Nuclear Regulation provides legally endorsed guidance for nuclear site licensees, harmonising expectations and limiting ambiguity.
Second, the rules must introduce a statute of limitations for supplier recourse, ideally between five to seven years post-commissioning. The absence of such a boundary fosters a climate of perpetual uncertainty. In Germany, the Atomic Energy Act limits supplier responsibility to within ten years unless otherwise contractually agreed, thereby offering both fairness and insurability.
Third, India must institutionalise a Nuclear Liability Claims Commission – a quasi-judicial body empowered to expedite claims and distribute compensation in the event of an incident. Japan’s Act on Compensation for Nuclear Damage provides a precedent, with its Dispute Reconciliation Committee ensuring swift and expert resolution of claims without overwhelming civil courts.
In sum, the CLND Rules must cease to be shadows of legislative intent and become instruments of legal certainty. For, when dealing with the atom, it is not enough to have laws that exist – they must inspire trust and invite action.
The laws that once embodied India’s nuclear caution must now reflect its nuclear ambition. The State must evolve from being a monopolist into a mentor – setting rules, ensuring safety, guarding the public, but not standing in the way of progress. It must draw inspiration not from the India of 1962 but from the India of 2047.
For in this atom lies a future not just of electricity, but of dignity – where factories do not sleep, homes do not shiver, and cities breathe clean. To get there, India must reforge its legal steel – not to fight the world, but to clasp its hand. Let these amendments be that forge. Let them be the bridge between principle and pragmatism, between the weight of the past and the promise of tomorrow.
The writers are, respectively, an Advocate Supreme Court of India, who is also visiting faculty at the National University of Study and Research in Law (NUSRL), Ranchi, and an IAS officer.