Former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan. Photo: Screenshot on YouTube
New Delhi: A high-level investigative panel appointed by the Supreme Court to indict the wayward policemen for causing “tremendous harassment” and “immeasurable distress” to ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan in the 1994 espionage case has submitted its report to the high court, sources said.
On September 14, 2018, the SC appointed the three-member panel headed by its former judge DK Jain while ordering the Kerala government to pay Rs 50 lakh as compensation for forcing Narayanan to suffer “immense humiliation”.
The scientist was arrested when Congress headed the government in Kerala. The panel, after completing its investigation, recently submitted its report in a sealed cover to the higher court.
The CBI, in its investigation, had argued that then-senior police officers in Kerala were responsible for the illegal arrest of Narayanan.
The case also had its political consequences, with a section in Congress targeting the then prime minister, the late K. Karunakaran on the issue, ultimately leading to his resignation.
Over a period of nearly two and a half years, the panel headed by Judge Jain examined the circumstances that led to Narayanan’s arrest. The report’s findings are not yet known.
The espionage case, which made headlines in 1994, concerned allegations of transfer of certain confidential documents about India’s space program to foreign countries by two scientists and four others, including two Maldivian women.
The 79-year-old former scientist, who was given a clean fine by the IWC, maintained that the Kerala police had “fabricated” the case and that the technology he was accused of having stolen and sold in the 1994 case did not even exist in that moment.
Narayanan had addressed the high court against a Kerala high court ruling stating that “no action was necessary” against former DGP Siby Mathews, who then headed the SIT investigation team, two retired police superintendents, KK Joshua and S. Vijayan, and the then deputy director of the Intelligence Bureau, RB Shreekumar, who were later held responsible by the IWC for the unlawful detention of the scientist.
The supreme court said in its ruling that to obtain a factual scenario, a committee needed to be constituted to find ways and means to take adequate measures against errant officials.
“The criminal law was launched without any foundation. It started, if one can say it, with some kind of fantasy or notion, ”said a bank headed by then-Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra.
“We consider that the appellant was arrested and has been in custody for almost 50 days. His arrest has been seriously criticized in the CBI closing report. The aforementioned report reveals the harassment and mental torture suffered by the appellant ”, added the bench.
The sentence said that “the entire prosecution” initiated by the state police was “malicious and has caused tremendous harassment and immeasurable anguish” to Narayanan. “It can be stated with certainty” that Narayanan’s fundamental right to life and personal liberty were “seriously affected,” the higher court said.
The CBI, while giving the scientist a clean note, had said that Siby Mathews had left “all research to the IB, handing over her duties” and ordered the indiscriminate arrest of the scientist and others without adequate evidence.
The case came to attention in October 1994, when the Maldivian national Rasheeda was arrested in Thiruvananthapuram for allegedly obtaining secret drawings of ISRO rocket engines, apparently with the intention of selling them to Pakistan.
Narayanan, the then director of the cryogenic project at ISRO, was arrested along with the then deputy director of ISRO D. Sasikumaran, and Fousiya Hasan, also a Maldivian and friend of Rasheeda.
The higher court had described the police action against the former ISRO scientist as a “psychopathological treatment”.
He had said that his “freedom and dignity”, which are fundamental aspects of human rights, were compromised when he was taken into custody and, finally, despite all the glory of the past, he was forced to face a “loathing. cynical”.
By awarding Rs 50 lakh to Narayanan, which was to be paid for by the state government, the higher court said it was meant to compensate for the scientist’s suffering, anxiety and treatment.
The high court had said that “an individual’s reputation is an inseparable facet of his right to a life with dignity” and had rejected the Kerala government’s claim that, due to the lapse of time, no investigation or investigation was necessary. take further action. against misguided officials.
The Supreme Court accepted Narayanan’s claim that the authorities responsible for causing this “heartbreaking effect” on his mind faced “legal consequences.”
