New Delhi, August 3
A petitioner seeking the intervention of the Supreme Court in the Indo-US nuclear deal with a plea for getting it ratified by Parliament was today politely rebuked by the court for trying to invoke judicial intervention in a matter essentially falling in executive’s domain. It though acknowledged that the issue was “serious and of national concern”.

“We don’t say it is not a serious matter. It is a very serious matter of national concern, but there are several constitutional authorities in the government to take decision.…but the prayer in the petition cannot be granted,” a Bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justices Tarun Chatterjee and R.V. Raveendran said.

A PIL moved by Anil Chawla and argued on his behalf by former Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh and Calcutta High Court, Justice P.S. Mishra, sought to invoke Article 73 of the Constitution for placing the 123 Agreement before Parliament and stay its operation till ratified by the legislature.

The court at one point of time during the arguments advised Justice Mishra to “wait till the report is placed before Parliament”, but when he insisted for a direction or even an observation pertaining to placing it before the legislature, the CJI said no such direction could be issued, specially when the government was seized of the matter.

Expressing the hope that the government would place it before Parliament on its own, the court said various constitutional authorities in the executive and legislature, including the Prime Minister, minister of parliamentary affairs and the Lok Sabha Speaker are there to fulfill their constitutional obligations.

“These are matters of parliamentary affairs… this court can’t take upon itself the work assigned to Parliament… we can’t tell Parliament to pass this or that legislation… the government may place the agreement before Parliament… you can make a request to the minister of parliamentary affairs, Prime Minister and the Speaker,” the Bench told Justice Mishra.

Justice Mishra alleged that the 123 Agreement was a “complete sell out and surrender of country’s interests and the law making powers by the UPA Alliance to US regarding the nuclear programme… we want to bring before the court and the nation the action of the government which will be detrimental to country’s interests and security.”

In response to Justice Mishra’s argument that several scientists in the country had spoke or written against the agreement, the court said its job was not to evaluate different views on the subject as many other scientists had also spoken in favour of the deal and endorsed it.

The petitioner citing certain scientific study reports said that the sudden interest shown by the US in India’s nuclear programme was because “we are at the verge of developing a new type of (thorium-based) nuclear fuel and with the signing of the deal this will be stopped.”

But when the court expressed its limitations in judicial intervention in a matter like this, the petitioner sought two withdraw the PIL after the court said that he should wait for placing of the agreement before Parliament. As is the practice in the matters not entertained, the court declared the PIL “dismissed as withdrawn”.