Close on the heels of Congress leader K Muraleedharan’s accusations in the ISRO espionage case, documents have come out pointing fingers at the role played by the UDF Government in closing a long pending file seeking disciplinary action against the three key police officials involved in the case. The decision was taken when the government was just 43 days into office.
On June 29, 2011 the UDF Government issued an order to drop disciplinary proceedings against the investigating officers - S Vijayan, the then inspector, Special Branch, Thiruvananthapuram City, K K Joshua, the then DySP Crime Branch and Siby Mathews, the then DIG (Crimes).
The order stated that neither the Chief Judicial Magistrate who accepted the final report nor the Supreme Court had issued any direction to take action against the trio.
So the government is of the view that it is not proper or legal to take disciplinary action against the officials for the alleged lapses pointed out in the investigation report of the CBI at this juncture, after the lapse of 15 years and therefore government decides that no disciplinary action need be taken against the officials for their alleged lapses in the investigation of the case, the order said.
Coming down heavily on the government’s decision, K Muraleedharan MLA said that it was a false decision by the government.
“The Chief Minister should review the decision and take action against the officials based on the findings of CBI’s final report in the case,” he said adding that the matter was not discussed within Congress while taking a decision, since the allegation was also against the then Congress Chief Minister.
It was ‘mysterious’ that a Congress government had decided to drop the action proposed by the CBI.
Meanwhile, CPM politburo member Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said that earlier no one, including K Muraleedharan raised any such arguments in the issue.
“Since the ISRO case was part of the Congress factionalism CPM decided not to get involved in the matter. That is also the reason behind the delay in taking action against the police officers. We decided to move legally. The LDF Government sought the legal opinion of the Advocate General but soon election was declared,” Kodiyeri said.
Terming the government decision illegal, C Unnikrishnan, counsel of former senior ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan said that they are planning to file a criminal complaint against the officials who dragged an innocent scientist into the case.
“Terming the probe as ‘unprofessional’ the CBI had pointed out that Siby Mathews ordered indiscriminate arrest of ISRO scientists and others without adequate evidence. So there would be a larger conspiracy behind the arrest of Nambi Narayanan.
“We will also approach the Kerala High Court seeking action against the trio,” he added.
