Scientist who had an unceremonious exit was absolved of charges later
The infamous ISRO spy case that created a sensation way back in 1994 is back in the limelight as the CBI filed an FIR in a Thiruvananthapuram court on Thursday about the conspiracy angle behind the episode.
Kerala’s former director general of police Siby Mathews, then Deputy Director of Intelligence Bureau RB Sreekumar and a host of junior level police officers figure as accused in the FIR, according to sources in the CBI.
The ISRO spy case centred round allegations made by a section of the media in Kerala that sensitive documents pertaining to the development of cryogenic engine used to power space launch vehicles meant for deploying heavy communication and earth observation satellites were handed over to two Maldivian women, Mariam Rasheeda and Fauzia Hassan, by space scientists Nambi Narayanan and D Sasikumaran.
Narayanan, Sasikumaran and the two Maldivian women (one of whom was employed in the Maldives Army) were arrested along with some persons in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh with whom the women had some kind of liaisons.
Though the local police probed the case initially, they could not make any breakthrough and hence the enquiry was handed over to the CBI. Nambi Narayanan and Sasikumaran were interrogated and tortured by the Kerala Police and the IB. The CBI found that there was no spying and directed a thorough probe into the conspiracy behind the case which saw both Narayanan and Sasikumaran, two engineers who pioneered the cryogenic technology, making an unceremonious exit from the ISRO.
The case also saw then Chief Minister K Karunanakaran losing his job following allegations that an IPS officer Raman Srivastava, a close associate of the former, was also involved in the case.
After the conclusion of the CBI probe, Cherian Philip, considered as an acolyte of then Chief Minister AK Antony, wrote articles that the spy case was a cock and bull story.
“Our aim was to oust Karunakaran as Chief Minister and bring in AK Antony in his place. The ISRO spy case came in handy at that time,” Cherian had told the media. Incidentally, he dumped Antony and Oommen Chandi and crossed over to the CPI(M).
The Supreme Court not only gave a clean chit to Nambi Narayanan but ordered the State Government to pay a compensation of Rs 1 crore to him for the mental agony and humiliation suffered by him. The apex court had appointed an investigation team under the chairmanship of DK Jain, a retired Supreme Court judge, to find out the details of the conspiracy angle behind the case as wanted by the CBI.
The CBI re-examined the case as per the recommendations of the Jain Committee and the FIR is the culmination of the probe. Besides Mathews and Sreekumar, there are 16 police and IB officials listed in the FIR as accused.
The spy case and the controversy resulted in a delay of more than two decades in India developing its own indigenous cryogenic technology and this cost the country thousands of crore in foreign exchange outflow because ISRO was at the mercy of international space agencies that charge exorbitant rates to deploy its communication satellites