India not bound by Hyde Act: Pranab

NUCLEAR DEAL CLOUD

The government sought to allay the Left's concerns over the Indo-US nuclear deal by saying India was not bound by the Hyde Act. The Act, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said, was unacceptable as it contained certain "extraneous and prescriptive" provisions.

"Whatever is stated in Hyde Act is not binding on us. How they (US) deal with it is their problem," Mukherjee told reporters in Parliament minutes after his statement in the Lok Sabha.

Replying to a query, he said there were many "extraneous and prescriptive" provisions in Hyde Act which were "not acceptable" to India.

Section 103 of the Act contains provisions for India's cooperation in containing Iran's nuclear programme and New Delhi halting fissile material production.

It also suggested that the US would oppose development of a capability to produce nuclear weapons by any non-nuclear weapon state within or outside the NPT regime.

When told that the Left parties were insisting that the 123 agreement needed to be read in conjunction with the Hyde Act, he said, "Everybody has his own right to say..."

Mukherjee said the Act was between US Congress and the US Administration and not between the parliaments of the two countries. "What is stated in the Hyde Act is not going to be our concern," he said.

"It is for the government (US) to decide how they will respond to the laws passed by their Parliament," he said.