Mumbai: Senior US and Indian officials seems to have convinced the International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors regarding the India specific safeguards agreement, but at least three eminent scientists have cautioned the government against expanded nuclear inspections by the IAEA.

Once the nuclear deal is in place, India's commercial nuclear interaction with other countries will be ''firmly controlled'' the US through the Hyde Act enforced through its ''stranglehold'' on the Nuclear Suppliers Group, they said.

In a letter to members of Parliament, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission P K Iyengar, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board A Gopalakrishnan and former director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre AN Prasad have pointed out several lacunae in the draft safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

India has offered to subject its 14 declared civilian atomic reactors to IAEA inspections to help enable it to import "trigger list" nuclear items for peaceful use, even though it has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and tested atomic bombs.

''We are strongly of the opinion that the government should not seek the IAEA board's approval for the current draft safeguards agreement until its implications are debated more fully within the country and with a group of experts who were not party to the IAEA negotiations,'' the scientists observed in the letter.

They also said that analysts had convincingly refuted the government's main reason for pushing the deal - energy security for the country.

Foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon along with R B Grover, director (strategic planning), addressed the 35-member board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna on Friday. Menon also briefed 19 of the 45 nations who are part of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

India negotiated the safeguards agreement with IAEA experts and the text is to be considered by the 35-nation governing board in a special session on 1 August. Approval is a precondition for launching a US-Indian nuclear trade accord.

If it passes, India must win clearance from a 45-nation group that regulates sensitive nuclear trade before ratification by the US Congress for the controversial 2005 nuclear agreement to take force.