BANGALORE: Former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) G Madhavan Nair, who was slapped with a ban over the controversial S-Band spectrum deal between Antrix and Devas Technologies, shot off another letter to the Prime Minister’s Office, seeking a fresh probe into the controversy.
Though he is yet to receive a response for his first letter, Nair wrote the second one alleging that the first committee had said the deal was only to be renegotiated and not cancelled, as per the recommendations of the subsequent Pratyush Sinha Panel. He has also pointed out issues like the non-consulting of the Insat Co-ordination Committee (ICC).
In his rebuttal, Nair claims to have written about the Satcom Policy, where the ICC had authorised the leasing out of transponder capacity by the Department of Space. Terming the actions of the government “insensitive”, he has sought “fair treatment” by the formation of another committee to probe all the instances related to the deal, including the agreement process and even the actions taken so far by the committees and the government.
Meanwhile, Minister of State (MoS) in the PMO V Narayansamy told Express from Puducherry that he had not read the second letter but asserted that actions taken should not be conceived as “government against scientists”.
“The actions taken were based on the findings of the Pratyush Sinha panel and not the government,” he said. Unwilling to comment about the deal, he said he had shared with the scientist community the government’s “gratitude for their contribution”.
Nair said, “My intentions in writing the letter were to bring to the notice of the Minister many things that were not reported to him.”
Nair clarified that he only wished to “set the record straight” and so, had included a point-by-point rebuttal of all charges, which formed the basis of the actions. “He (Naryansamy) said that I am misleading the country. I wanted to tell him to bring out all facts, a comprehensive enquiry is needed,” Nair told Express. He also pointed out that ISRO’s B N Suresh Committee (2009) findings were also kept away from public domain.