Antrix-Devas case: Court summons Devas Multimedia ex-director

Special judge Santosh Snehi Mann passed the order after being told that the summons issued earlier could not be severed to Muthgadahali Gangarudaraiah Chandrasekhar since he is now settled in the US.

The investigating officer moved an application for the issuance of fresh summons before the court, which was told by the CBI's public prosecutor Manoj Shukla that according to MHA guidelines and treaty between India and US, the process requires at least three months time for execution.

"Application for summoning accused Chandrasekhar, as per the treaty between India and US, is allowed. Summons be issued to accused Chandrasekhar," the court said, seeking his presence by April 26.

The court passed the order while granting bail to former ISRO chairperson G Madhavan Nair and others, including A Bhaskar Narayana Rao, the then director in ISRO, and KR Sridhar Murthy, the then executive director of Antrix, in the case.

The court had on September 16 summoned Nair and others as accused while taking 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 FIR was filed on March 16, 2015 against Nair and others accusing them of facilitating "wrongful" gain of Rs 578 crore to private multimedia company Devas by Antrix, the commercial arm of the 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.