Thursday, May 01, 2014: Earlier this week, we reported that a dispute settlement panel may be formed to resolve the issue between India and US over the solar power policy case. In the latest, India has rejected the idea of forming any such panel at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The dispute is over the mandatory domestic sourcing norms in solar projects in India. US had requested to form a dispute settlement panel citing that more discussions were required in this case.
As per the existing guidelines, if US makes a second request to form a panel, with the Dispute Settlement Body of WTO, India will not be able to reject the same. According to a Business Line report, a commerce ministry official said, “We have rejected US’ first request for a panel as we do believe that the compulsory domestic sourcing of solar panels and solar cells in our solar projects do not violate WTO rules. But if we can’t convince the US through our discussions, we are ready to fight our case formally whenever a panel is established.”
The Dispute Settlement Body of the WTO discuss the US request for forming a dispute settlement panel on the solar issue, but had to drop the proposal after India rejected it. The two nations have discussed the issue, but nothing concrete seems to have emerged, due to which the idea of setting up a dispute settlement panel within the WTO came up.
It is worth mentioning here that India was blamed for discrimination against solar cells and modules made in US, owing to the requirement that solar power developers participating in phase-II of National Solar Mission use solar cells and modules manufactured only in India.
