KOCHI:The state government on Monday informed the Kerala High Court it was withdrawing its petition against the Thiruvananthapuram Principal Sessions Court order discharging former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan from a defamation case filed against him in connection with the ISRO espionage case. The revision petition was filed in 2004.
The Single Judge had earlier asked the government to think wisely and report to the court whether, in the present circumstances, the government was looking to proceed with the criminal revision petition. When the case came up on Monday, the government informed it was willing and ready to comply with the whatever decision the Supreme Court takes in this regard. Therefore, the government has decided to withdraw the revision petition. The court recorded the submission of the government and closed the petition.
The Supreme Court had recently reserved its judgment on a petition filed by the former ISRO scientist for action against former top officials the police for illegally detaining him and torturing in connection with the ISRO espionage case.
The defamation case was filed by the government on request of Siby Mathew, who headed the special investigation team which had probed the ISRO espionage case. The allegation was that Nambi Narayanan and others had made defamatory statements against the police officers in the media. The government had accorded sanction to the public prosecutor in 1999 to initiate defamation case against Nambi Narayanan and others for making defamatory statements against the police officers.
Dismissing the complaint, the sessions court had pointed out that the petition was not maintainable as there was no proper sanction for filing the defamation case.