While Mangalyaan, India’s Mars Orbiter Mission, had its rendezvous with the red planet as scripted and finalised by the country’s space technologists, the man who made it possible is waiting for justice from the Kerala High Court.
Nambi Narayanan, India’s ace space scientist has been waiting for a verdict from Kerala High Court which would be the last nail on the coffin of false charges framed against him by the Kerala Police and the Intelligence Bureau.
Nambi Narayanan, who designed and developed the Polar Satellite launch Vehicle which put the MOM into outer space, was wrongly implicated and arrested in the infamous ISRO spy case by the Kerala Police and Intelligence Bureau officials in 1994.
His arrest derailed India’s advanced space programme. At the time of his arrest, the Tirunelveli-born aero apace engineer was on the verge of developing India’s indigenous cryogenic engine capable of lifting heavy built launch vehicles into outer space. According to the CBI which later probed the case, India’s space programme got delayed by nearly two decades following his arrest. The country is yet to perfect a cryogenic engine capable of putting heavy communication satellites into orbit as well as take Indian space crafts into inter planetary missions.
The Kerala Police team led by Siby Mathew (presently Kerala’s Chief Information Commissioner) arrested Narayanan and Sasi Kumar (his deputy) and interrogated and tortured them on charges of passing India’s space technology secrets to two women from Maldives. The case was further probed by Intelligence Bureau officials who too physically and mentally tortured Narayanan. The IB team was led by none other than RB Sreekumar, the former Gujarat DGP who is on a mission to demolish Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Following the failure of both the Kerala Police and the IB to prove any charges against Narayanan, the case was transferred to the CBI for further probe. Officers of the country’s premier investigating agency were shocked to see the efforts of people like Siby Mathews and Sreekumar to implicate the eminent scientist in a false and fabricated case.
The ISRO spy case had all the ingredients of a potboiler movie. Oommen Chandi, the present chief minister of Kerala wanted to oust K Karunankaran, the then chief minister. Chandi and his group leaders devised a strategy to attack Karunakaran by implicating people close to him in corruption cases. That was how the spy case was fabricated. When Karunakaran resigned following the controversy, Antony was appointed chief minister. Since Siby Mathew knew well that there was no substance in the spy case, he got the Antony government to transfer the case to the CBI.
The 196 page CBI report tells that the spy case was a false and fabricated case which was foisted with ulterior motives. “The CBI had asked the state and central governments to take action against eight official from the IB as well as three from the Kerala Police. The report has conclusively said that an effort was on by the police and IB officials to sabotage the countyr’s space programme,” said C Unnikrishnan, lawyer representing Nambi Narayanan.
The officers against whom the CBI wanted action to be taken include R B Sreekumar, Rattan Sehgal and Mathew John (all IB) Siby Mathew, Joshi and Vijayan (Kerala Police). Rattan Sehgal was caught red handed while spying for the CIA and was discharged from the IB and he died soon after…At the time of his death a probe was on to find out detailsa bout his hobnobbing with CIA spies. Sreekumar was deputed to Gujarat after he is believed to have made a deal with the Congress government at the Centre to destabilise the BJP government led by Narendra Modi. Mathew John is enjoying his retired life in Kozhiode, Kerala.
The CBI report was submitted in 1996. By that time there was a change of government in Kerala. The new government led by the CPI(M) which never had any favourable disposition to India’s space programme issued an order quashing the CBI report and ordered a re-investigation into the spy case. Narayanan challenged this in the Supreme Court which declared the Kerala government order illegal. Since then the CBI report and the Supreme Court order has been pushed under the carpet.
As part of his odyssey to get justice, Narayanan approached the Kerala High Court requesting a directive to the Kerala government to order legal as well as department action against Siby Mathew and other officials. The case was heard in detail by the High Court which reserved the orders on April 8, 2014. It is six months since the judge hearing the petition reserved orders. The Supreme Court order of 2011 by justices K T Thomas and R C Sethi says that all verdicts should be pronounced within two months of reserving the orders.
While ISRO chairman paraded all former ISRO bosses for the injection of the MOM into the martian orbit, two persons were conspicuously left out ; . Narayanan and G Madhavan Nair. The former built the PSlV engine while the latter perfected the technology. If Narayanan gets justice, the country stands to gain. He will share all his expertise with the new generation ISRO scientists. For that to happen, the judge should pronounce his verdict.