SC to consider Jain panel report in ISRO case

The Supreme Court is scheduled to consider on Thursday a report of a panel headed by former top court judge D K Jain, formed in September 2018 to probe the role of Kerala police officers in the wrongful arrest of ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan in a 1994 espionage case.

A bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and Vineet Saran would take up the matter on April 15, based on the report submitted in a sealed cover.

The Centre has filed an application asking the court to open the sealed cover of the report for passing appropriate orders as the matter was of national importance.

79-year-old Narayanan waged a legal battle against the Kerala police officers who accused him of being a Pakistan spy in 1994. Besides appointing the panel, the top court had directed the Kerala government to pay Rs 50 lakh compensation for causing immense humiliation to Narayanan.

In 2018, a bench of the then Chief Justice Dipak Misra decided to appoint a committee under Jain and asked the Centre and the Kerala government to name one person each to the committee under Jain. While the Centre appointed a top official, D K Prasad, the Pinarayi Vijayan government appointed former Additional Chief Secretary V S Senthil.

The ISRO spy case surfaced in 1994 when Narayanan was arrested on charges of espionage along with another senior official of ISRO, two Maldivian women and a businessman.

The CBI had held that the then top police officials in Kerala were responsible for Narayanan's illegal arrest. The panel examined the circumstances leading to Narayanan's arrest. It was alleged that confidential documents on India's space programme were allegedly transferred to foreign countries.

Narayanan had maintained that Kerala police fabricated the case and the technology he was accused to have stolen and sold in 1994 case did not even exist at that time.

The Modi government awarded the scientist Padma Bhushan.