Hurt at the action taken against him over the Antrix-Devas deal, former ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair on Wednesday accused space agency Chairman K Radhakrishnan of being behind the move and pursuing a "personal agenda" to mislead the government.
A day after the government decided to scrap the Antrix-Devas S-Band spectrum allocation deal, Law Minister M Veerappa Moily met Home Minister P Chidambaram discussing legal ramifications of the move against the backdrop of the private company threatening to sue the government.
Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office V Narayanasamy on Sunday accused former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair of misleading the nation by saying he was not given a chance to explain his case before the high level panel which indicted him and three other space scientists in the Antrix-Devas deal.
Battling the action against him and three other top scientists in the controversial Antrix-Devas deal, former Indian Space Research Organisation chief G Madhavan Nair on Monday demanded that the order barring them from government posts should not only be revoked but an apology should be tendered by those responsible for it. "They owe an apology not to me but to the whole country. Somebody has taken the law into their hands and they have to apologise," said Nair.
Reflecting a sense of disquiet, senior ISRO scientists, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was a sad episode and the space agency's image has certainly taken a severe beating.
Even as the ISRO spectrum deal snowballs into a major issue, with the Opposition parties gunning for the United Progressive Alliance government, the head of the Indian Space Research Organisation Dr K. Radhakrishnan said that the Antrix-Devas S-band spectrum deal was recommended to be annulled in 2010 and the Department of Space is going through the process of reviewing the agreement.
The law ministry has told the department of space to allow four Indian Space Research Organisation scientists "post decisional opportunity" to place their stand on its move debarring them from occupying any government position in future in the aftermath of the Antrix-Devas S Band deal.
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh spent the second half of Tuesday with Union Ministers and senior officials to prepare himself for Wednesday's proposed meeting with editors.
Unfazed by the Supreme Court upholding winding up of the company, shareholders of Devas Multimedia will continue to seek seizure of Indian government assets abroad to collect $1.2 billion the firm has been awarded by arbitration tribunals for cancellation of a satellite deal but are open for talks to settle the issue, their counsel said. "The decision by the Supreme Court does not change anything. The Modi government and the Indian courts cannot rewrite the facts. "Their flimsy allegations of fraud will never stand up in courts outside of India," said Matthew D McGill, partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and lead counsel for several Devas' shareholders.
In a most perverse example of tax bullying, someone I know has got by three such notices reopening his assessment minutes before the midnight deadline of June 30, reveals Debashis Basu.
'The only loser is the tax payer who doesn't have a clue as to how his money is being used.'
The International Chamber of Commerce's arbitration body International Court of Arbitration has ruled in our favour in the Antrix-Devas arbitration case and Antrix is liable to pay damages totalling $672 million to it, Devas said on Tuesday.
Our governments are easily prone to arbitrary decisions but if you are dealing with international firms, such arbitrariness can turn back and bite you, says T N Ninan.
