India’s Nuclear Rulebook Begins to Take Shape

India’s Department of Atomic Energy has opened the draft Rules and Regulations under the SHANTI Act, 2025 for public consultation, with feedback invited until September 4, 2026. The draft SHANTI Rules set out a single composite licence covering a plant’s full lifecycle, along with mandatory insurance and financial security for operators, while the accompanying draft SHANTI Regulations cover the safety authorisation and technical approval process. Together they lay the operational groundwork for private and foreign players to build, own and operate nuclear plants in India.

Where India’s Nuclear Capacity Stands

India currently has about 8.78 GW of installed nuclear capacity. The government projects this will reach 22.38 GW by 2031-32, on the way to a longer-term target of 100 GW by 2047 under the Nuclear Energy Mission announced in the Union Budget 2025-26 — part of India’s broader roadmap to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2070. The Mission also aims to have at least five indigenous Small Modular Reactors operational by 2033.

The Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Act, 2025, which received presidential assent in December 2025, underpins this push. It repealed the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010, consolidating India’s nuclear law into a single framework and opening the sector to private participation for the first time. Domestic conglomerates including Adani Green, Tata Power and Reliance Industries were reportedly invited to invest in the sector as early as 2024.

Liability Cap Before the Supreme Court

The liability cap is already being tested in court, separately from the rules consultation. The Supreme Court has asked the Centre to clarify whether the Act’s liability provisions stop constitutional courts from awarding fair and just compensation if a nuclear accident occurs, in a petition led by former bureaucrat E.A.S. Sarma challenging the Act on Article 14, 19 and 21 grounds.[1]

Appearing for the petitioners, advocate Prashant Bhushan has argued that capping operator liability and exempting equipment suppliers altogether runs against the Supreme Court’s own Constitution Bench ruling on absolute and unlimited liability for hazardous industries,[2] laid down in the 1987 M.C. Mehta oleum gas leak case. He has pointed out that the cap for even the largest operator is Rs 3,000 crore, well below the scale of damage from Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011), and far short of the US cap, which he put at roughly Rs 1.54 lakh crore. The bench, led by CJI Surya Kant, has called the cap a sensitive policy question but indicated a statutory cap wouldn’t stop courts from awarding fair compensation.

Framework Not Operational Yet

The provisions of the SHANTI Act are yet to be brought into force, and the rules and regulations discussed above remain at the public consultation stage. Any commercial activity — including reported site-scouting by companies — remains preparatory at this stage.

References:

[1] EAS Sarma & Ors. V. Union of India & Anr., WP(C) No.240/2026.

[2] MC Mehta v. Union of India, 1987 SCR (1) 819.