On Thursday, Isro insisted that the Space Commission in its meeting in July 2, 2010 gave directions to Antrix to annul the contract with Devas Multimedia Private Limited. But Devas issued their own statement insisting that at no stage were they informed that the contract was in any danger of being terminated. On the contrary, they conducted periodic joint reviews with Isro till January 2011.
Both the parties maintained that the approval of the Cabinet was sought by the Space Commission only on GSAT 6 project proposal in December 2005 and not on the allocation of spectrum to one company.
In another instance, while Isro stated that the Government of India has taken no decision on allocation of space segment using S-band spectrum to Devas or Antrix, Devas says that Antrix wrote a letter in February 2006 stating that they have received necessary approvals for the satellite and they were in a position to build, launch the satellite and lease the capacity as per the agreement.
Devas claims that they were making presentations on its security and strategic applications to various government agencies as late as January 2011 and there was no indication at any time that there was a problem with the agreement.
However, Isro relates a trail of consultation with the various departments starting with the Law department which gave them the clauses for the termination of the agreement.
Draft note
Subsequently, Isro says they circulated a note to concerned Ministries like Law & Justice, Telecom, Finance, Defence, Home Affairs and Ministry of External Affairs. This was a draft note prepared based on the Additional Solicitor General’s opinion that the annulment should be done through a policy decision taken at the level of Government of India and was sent to the Ministries for comment.
The Ministry of Law and Justice after scrutinising the agreement had opined that as per Article 7(c) of the agreement, Antrix may terminate the agreement in the event it is unable to obtain necessary orbit slot, and hence the Government may take a policy decision to the effect that due to strategic requirements, it would not be able to provide orbit slot in S-band to Antrix for commercial activities.