The Supreme Court will on November 14 hear a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) asking the court to direct that an expert body, independent of the Government and the nuclear establishment, conduct a thorough safety re-assessment of the country's existing and proposed nuclear facilities.

The PIL also wanted the court to direct this body to carry out a comprehensive safety re-assessment of the country's mining facilities of uranium and other nuclear fuel. The matter is slated to be heard by a bench comprising the Chief Justice Mr S H Kapadia, and Justices Mr A K Patnaik and Mr Swatanter Kumar.

The PIL has sought the court's direction for an independent expert body to conduct a thorough cost-benefit analysis of all proposed nuclear facilities and a thorough comparative cost-benefit analysis vis-à-vis other sources of energy.

The petitioners in the PIL include NGOs Common Cause and Centre for Public Interest Litigation as well as prominent persons such as former Cabinet Secretary Mr T.S.R. Subramanian, former Chief Election Commissioner, Mr N. Gopalaswami, and former Navy Chief Admiral L Ramdas.

The petitioners are represented by advocate Mr Prashant Bhushan. This petition seeks other reliefs in the interest of right to life, right to clean environment and right to healthy and safe enjoyment of life.

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