The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the conspiracy behind framing former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientist Nambi Narayanan in a spy case in 1994.
The bench, headed by justice AM Khanwilkar, termed the matter “serious”, and required “deeper investigation” into the role of the officers responsible for the false implication of the former space scientist.
Accepting the report by a committee appointed by the court in 2018, the bench said that CBI will be at liberty to use the contents of the report for registration of a preliminary enquiry (PE) to carry out further investigation.
Former Supreme Court judge DK Jain was entrusted with the task of holding an inquiry into the circumstances that led to framing of Narayanan, now 79, and his arrest by the Kerala police in 1994 in an espionage case in which he was exonerated two years later following a closure report by CBI.
Referring to the report, the bench, which also included justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Krishna Murari, said that the report did reveal that “everything was not hunky dory” and that the facts disclosed “acts of omission and commission by some officers of the state”.
The bench added that the report has recommended that CBI should register a PE and conduct a thorough investigation so that criminal liability could be fastened on some officers identified by the committee who were “responsible for the situation”.
The bench then recorded in its order that CBI will proceed in accordance with the law, and is at liberty to treat the report as a preliminary report. It said that CBI shall submit an action taken report in the court within three months to apprise the bench of the progress in the case.
{{/usCountry}}The bench then recorded in its order that CBI will proceed in accordance with the law, and is at liberty to treat the report as a preliminary report. It said that CBI shall submit an action taken report in the court within three months to apprise the bench of the progress in the case.
{{/usCountry}}Narayanan welcomed the court order. “I welcome the verdict. I would like to know who all played behind the conspiracy that delayed our cryogenic project. The technology should have been in use by 1999, but it was delayed by 15 years. Let the truth come out,” he said in Thiruvananthapuram.
During the proceedings, Sibi Mathews, former director general of the police of Kerala, who was identified by CBI as one of the officers responsible for concocting the case, complained that justice Jain did not hear his side of the story even though he heard Narayanan’s.
Advocate Amit Sharma, representing Mathews, also said that the committee should have heard him if any aspersion was cast on him in the report. But the bench replied that the purpose of the committee was not to adjudicate, but to make recommendations. It added that an accused was not supposed to be heard before the registration of a case, which was yet to happen. The bench, however, accepted Sharma’s request that the report should be kept confidential and be not be leaked to the press.
On his part, solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Union government, requested the bench to direct CBI to register a regular case (RC) straightaway in spite of first conducting a preliminary enquiry but the court said that CBI will have the freedom to choose its course of action.
The case against Narayanan was filed by the state’s Congress government in 1994. The government handed over the probe to CBI, which cleared Narayanan of all charges and blamed some police officials and then Intelligence Bureau (IB) deputy director RB Shreekumar of implicating the space scientist. After a trial court accepted CBI’s closure report, the state government tried to revive the investigation but the apex court rebuffed this endeavour.
In 2018, the SC also directed the state government to award Rs.50 lakh in compensation to Narayanan for his wrongful incarceration, malicious prosecution, and humiliation for being dragged in a false case. It had also observed that Narayanan deserved more, and that he could approach a lower court in Kerala for proper compensation. In August 2020, the Kerala government handed over an additional compensation of Rs.1.3 crore to Narayanan.