Antrix-Devas: Ex-ISRO chief Madhavan Nair summoned as accused

Former ISRO chairperson G Madhavan Nair was today summoned as an accused by a Delhi special court in the sensational Antrix-Devas deal case for allegedly causing a loss of Rs 578 crore to the exchequer.

Special Judge Virender Kumar Goyal took cognisance of the CBI charge sheet which alleged that Nair and other officials of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Department of Space (DoS) wrongfully leased out S-Band, a restricted wavelength of the INSAT satellites, to Devas Multimedia by Antrix.

The court took note of the probe report and issued summonses to Nair and others including A Bhaskar Narayana Rao, the then Director in ISRO, K R Sridhar Murthy, the then Executive Director of Antrix, former Additional Secretary in the Department of Space (DoS) Veena S Rao and sought their presence before it on December 23.

The cognisance of the final probe report was taken after the agency apprised the court that it had secured the requisite sanction from the authorities concerned to prosecute the former officials of premier space organisations.

The FIR was filed on March 16, 2015 against Nair and others accusing them of facilitating "wrongful" gain of Rs 578 crore to private multi-media company Devas by Antrix, the commercial arm of ISRO.

The probe agency had on August 11 last year filed a charge sheet against the accused, alleging they had caused a loss of Rs 578 crore to the exchequer by abusing their official position to favour a private company.

The case relates to leasing of S-Band, a restricted wavelength of the INSAT satellites to deliver video, multimedia and information services to mobile receivers in vehicles and mobile phones to Devas Multimedia by Antrix.