JOIN USISRO espionage case witnesses fresh twists
The 25-year-old ISRO espionage case of Kerala is witnessing fresh twists with some of the police officers now facing probe for allegedly fabricating the case and coming out with fresh allegations like shady land deals against former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan, who was exonerated from the espionage allegations.
It was during a hearing on the anticipatory bail pleas filed by some of the ex-police officers, against whom the CBI recently registered a case for conspiring to fabricate the espionage case, that fresh allegations were being raised to substantiate their stand that the espionage case was not fabricated one.
Former Kerala police officers S Vijayan and Thampi S Durgadutt have raised the fresh allegations that a land deal by Narayanan in favour of a former CBI officer in DIG rank and wife of a Kerala former DGP, who had also faced allegations of links with the 'espionage accused'. While 40 acres was given to the ex-CBI officer, 12 acres were allowed to the former CBI official. The deals took place in 2004 and were done through his son and relatives, they alleged and sought probe into these aspects.
Narayanan told DH that the ex-police officials were only trying to deliberately delay the probe against them by raising new baseless allegations even as the espionage case was already rejected by the Supreme Court. He also said that since the matter is now before the court, he is reserving his comments.
Narayanan's counsel had maintained that the conspiracy part of the case was not probed by the CBI earlier as the then Prime Minister did not want to affect the relationship with the US, which was also allegedly involved in the conspiracy behind the espionage case.
While the CBI maintained that the ISRO espionage case of 1994 was a concocted one and it could be the outcome of a conspiracy to delay India's cryogenic technology development, the ex-police officials including former DGP Siby Mathews were maintaining that the case was initiated as per IB reports. They also maintained that Narayanan had no involvement in cryogenic technology development and he had even decided to take voluntary retirement from ISRO before the espionage allegations surfaced.
While the anticipatory bail pleas of Durgadutt and Vijayan are pending before the Kerala High Court, the plea of Mathews is pending before a local court in Thiruvananthapuram.