Former ISRO Chairman, Mr G. Madhavan Nair, tainted by a probe into the now-dead Antrix-Devas deal, has said he and three former ISRO technocrats were not given a fair hearing and have been singled out by the second probe into the scam.
He would apprise the Prime Minister shortly about the “one-sided and heavy-handed” action based on irregular and non-transparent procedures that has pinned him down in the affair, Mr Nair told Business Line .
The four former top ISRO officials were not allowed a hearing before the Pratyush Singh panel of mid-2011; the present DoS Secretary who was also on the panel had presented one-sided views to it about the deal, he said.
“The names of three administrative people (bureaucrats) were also there. How did the panel isolate only the technical people and take such a high-handed action? Dr R.G. Nadadur, who was the additional secretary, DoS, at that time, Mr G. Balachandran and Ms Veena Rao (who succeeded him) were also named. But no action has been taken on them.”
More than worrying over summarily losing a four-year visiting professorship with the organisation, “It is my image. For whatever tarnishing they have done, I must seek redressal,” he said.
The former Department of Secretary singled out his successor, Dr K. Radhakrishnan, to say the latter had flouted many rules and guidelines of the department in the conduct of the initial departmental inquiries.
Formal investigation
He would prefer a formal investigation, framing of a chargesheet before being blamed.
“If anything anomalous is found, only then should action be taken. The present decisions are against principles of natural justice,” Mr Nair said.
Dr Radhakrishnan, who took over from him in October 2009 and started internally looking into the deal soon after, he said, had acted in secrecy, did not by courtesy consult him, kept the files at home and got them signed there by officials.
“It is not the merit of the Devas agreement or the way it was done that is questionable, but what transpired between December 2009 and now. There are a lot of issues there that are beyond what we see in the public domain. That is the area into which the Government needs to conduct an inquiry. It has to be an outside one and should keep out people from the DoS,” he said.
Further, he accused Dr Radhakrishnan of “re-writing” the 2009 report given by the internal B.N. Suresh committee.
“The Suresh committee gave a clean chit to the Devas agreement, concluded that the agreement would benefit the country, that it was commercially viable and that we should implement it as fast as possible.
“Then what made the (present) management to rewrite it and give a negative report to the Space Commission, and mislead the Space Commission to come to the conclusion of annulling the contract?”
He also said the four would address the actions individually.