Devas deal probes slammed Nair and co

Two high level inquiries set up by the Centre last year within six months of each other found the Isro deal with  for transponder leasing by Antrix Devas Multimedia Limited of Bangalore raised disturbing questions about the soundness of the contract.

Contrary to the claims made by former Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman G Madhavan Nair, reports of the two probes - the high powered review committee (HPRC) headed by Planning Commission member B K Chaturvedi and the High Level Team (HLT) headed by former Vigilance Commissioner Praty­ush Sinha that were released by ISRO late on Saturday night made adverse observations about the deal.

The two central government’s high-level probe teams provided enough scope to Nair and his three colleagues to clarify many issues on the Antrix-Devas deal, but, the HLT report said, they continued to give unsatisfactory response to most of the queries and attempted “obfuscation.”

The Pratyush Sinha-led inquiry found that actions on the part of four ISRO scientists “verged on the point of serious violation of norms and breach of public trust while some others were just file pushers or passive onlookers.”

“Satisfactory answers (from the scientists) have not been given to various points on which their views were sought. There is an attempt of obfuscation by key players as they have remained silent on issues like the arbitrary selection, lack of proper financial and technical evaluation, undue favours at government cost to Devas, lack of transparency and finally exposing Antrix and government to unwarranted commercial risks.” says the Sinha panel report.

With approval from the Prime Minister’s Office, ISRO also released the report of two-member committee which first probed the controversial ISRO-Devas deal.

“The terms of Antrix Devas contract were heavily loaded in favour of Devas. In the case of failure of the satellite the risk was entirely that DOS, but the success of the satellite would commit the DOS to substantial expenditure,” it said.

Last month, in an unpreced­ented step, the government banned four retired ISRO scientists – Nair, A Bha­skar­narayana, K  R Sridharamam­urthi and K N Shankara – from all future reemployment in the government, which includes position in various panels because of their role in controversial deal.

The decision triggered an uproar in the scientific community. The Sinha panel sought clarifications from eight persons including four scientists who were associated with the deal and gave them opportunity to appear before the panel in person to air their views. Three of them – Nair and two bureaucrats in the department of space – appeared before the panel.