Former ISRO scientist S Nambi Narayanan, who has a spying case against him, is still struggling to get justice. He was active in designing the structure used in Chandrayaan, Mangalyaan and PSLV that launched 104 satellites in one go last week and made headlines.
Narayanan was in the Supreme Court to attend the hearing of his petition that sought action against those who allegedly imposed a false case against him. “There, they are using the same system that I worked upon and developed. But here, I am still fighting to get justice. I have wasted my 25 years,” Narayanan said just after the hearing in his case concluded.
The court has fixed February 23 to hear his petition.
Actually, Narayanan’s career was ruined following the 1994 ISRO spying case made headlines. However, he was given a clean chit after a CBI investigation held that the Kerala police had contrived the case against him.
The 75-year-old was detained after the Kerala police caught Mariam Rasheeda, a Maldivian woman on October 20, 1994. Initially, she was detained for overstaying in India; but police later accused her of being involved in a sex-spy scandal. It was alleged that Rasheeda was the midway between the ISRO and two other women.
She was accused of passing on ISRO’s secrets to the women, who sequentially delivered the same to Russia and Pakistan’s ISI. However, two years later, the CBI cleared all the accused and filed a closure report before the court.
But the case was re-opened for the probe after a change in the government. This time, the Kerala police was asked to hold a fresh investigation. But then, the Supreme Court suppressed the state government’s decision in 1998.
The Kerala high court in September 2012, ordered the state govt to pay Rs 10 lakh as temporary relief to the scientist. In October 2014, action was ordered against the misbehaving police officials.
However, a division bench upturned the order in March 2015, after which Narayanan approached the Supreme Court. His complaint is that regardless of the CBI investigation indicting the police officers, the state has not taken any action against them.