KOTTAYAM: Setting the room for fresh controversies over the controversial and annulled agreement between the Indian Space Research Organisation’s commercial arm Antrix Corporation and Bengaluru-based Devas Multimedia, ISRO former chairman G Madhavan Nair, in his soon-to-be-released autobiography, ‘Agnipareekshakal,’ has made a blistering attack against his successor K Radhakrishnan. Madhavan Nair alleged the agreement, which would have been beneficial for the country, was annulled only because Radhakrishnan misled the government. ‘’Usually, if there is any complaint over an agreement, an inquiry commission will be formed and its report would be submitted to the Space Commission and the Government. Contrary to this, one of the best agreements was cancelled only because the government and the Space Commission were misled by the pressure exerted by the ISRO Chairman (K Radhakrishnan was the then chairman),” the book says.
He said though a committee led by the then Planning Board member B K Chaturvedi and Space Commission member Narasimha, constituted to inquire into the issue, found no wrong elements in the deal, the report was not accepted. “Since the report was against the interests of the ISRO Chairman, a review committee was formed under the chairmanship of Prathyush Sinha, and the ISRO Chairman also managed to become a member of this committee. However, the committee’s findings have not been released so far,” said Madhavan Nair in the book. Madhavan Nair said he came to know from media reports the committee found the deal made loss to the government after Devas company sold shares to a foreign company citing the deal with Antrix Corporation.
“The report sums up four scientists and four administrative officers, who made loss to the government’ should be punished. However, not complying with any rules and without sending any intimation on the offences committed, messages were passed to the state and central government offices to keep away us from all government related jobs and activities.
It is learned that all these allegations and action were only on the basis of personal grudge and for saving the face of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and get the term of the ISRO Chairman extended,” the book says.
Madhavan Nair, however, said former President A P J Abdul Kalam stood by him and gave him the courage to approach the court against it. He also mentioned former CAG Vinod Ray’s observation the allegations were only a ‘mistake in the calculation’ and later said in his book ‘loss figure had no basis and has dropped it.’