KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Thursday directed the CBI not to arrest former IB officer and ex-Gujarat DGP R B Sreekumar — the seventh accused in the case pertaining to the conspiracy to frame Nambi Narayanan and others in the 1994 ISRO espionage case — until August 2. Justice K Haripal passed the order on an anticipatory bail petition filed by Sreekumar.
The court also ordered that the petition be tagged with other bail petitions filed by two former Kerala Police officers and former IB officials, which had been posted for hearing on August 2.The Gujarat High Court had ordered the CBI not to arrest him until July 29 on a petition filed by Sreekumar seeking temporary transit bail till he obtain anticipatory bail from the court concerned in Kerala.When the petition came up for hearing, senior counsel S Sreekumar, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that he has not interrogated Nambi Narayanan or even met the former scientist during the interrogations. The then court asked as to how his name appeared in the FIR?
He submitted that it was at the request of the Kerala Police that the Director of Intelligence Bureau had deputed IB officers, including the petitioner, for assisting the Kerala Police in its investigation in the espionage case. Nambi Narayanan had not alleged that the petitioner had harassed him. He had only been tasked with the job of interrogating another former ISRO scientist, D Sasikumaran. He had only obeyed the orders of his superior officers. The petitioner was even exonerated by the Union Home Ministry in the departmental proceedings initiated after the CBI filed the final report saying that it was a false case, the plea stated.