The ED has accused Devas Multimedia, its subsidiaries and its senior officials, and Sridhara Murthi, the former MD of Antrix, of facilitating the siphoning of a part of Rs 579 crore foreign investment. (Image: AP)
THE ENFORCEMENT Directorate (ED) has filed a chargesheet under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against a former managing director of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) commercial arm Antrix Corporation and five individuals associated with private space start-up Devas Multimedia Pvt Ltd in connection with finances for a 2005 Antrix-Devas deal for the launch of two satellites by ISRO for digital video communications.
The chargesheet for money laundering was filed earlier this month by the ED against six individuals — including former Antrix MD K R Sridhara Murthi, two US-based directors of Devas Multimedia and four subsidiaries of Devas Multimedia located in Bengaluru and the US.
Devas officials named as accused are Ramachandran Viswanathan (CEO), M G Chandrashekar (former ISRO employee and director), Desaraju Venugopal (a CTO), Nataraj Dakshinamurthy (CTO), Ranganathan Mohan (a finance director).
The ED has accused Devas Multimedia, its subsidiaries and its senior officials, and Sridhara Murthi, the former MD of Antrix, of facilitating the siphoning of a part of Rs 579 crore foreign investment that was received by Devas Multimedia on the basis of its 2005 agreement with ISRO for building and launching two satellites to provide video services on mobile handsets in India.
The three subsidiaries named are Devas Multimedia America Inc, DCT Telecommunications Pvt Ltd, DCT Networks Pvt Ltd.
Investigations have revealed that Devas Multimedia transferred 85 per cent of the Rs 579 crore foreign funding to the US under various claims.
The FDI was received via the Mauritius route from investors such as Columbia Capital and Deutsche Telekom. Of the total, Rs 76.19 crore was transferred to US subsidiary Devas Multimedia America Inc as investment, while Rs 180.77 crore was allegedly transferred to the subsidiary under the pretext of providing business support services. A further Rs 230.11 crore was spent as legal fee, with a major portion transferred to the US, the ED has alleged.
In February 2017, the ED had provisionally attached Rs 79.76 crore belonging to Devas Multimedia, which was in the form of upfront capacity reservation fees paid by Devas to ISRO to reserve two communication satellites for its use and mutual fund deposits and bank deposits.
“The main purpose of entering the agreement with ISRO/ACL was to raise foreign investments on the strength of the agreement with ISRO and thereafter siphon off the investment raised, out of India in the guise of investment in subsidiary company, business support services and legal fee,’’ the ED had said in a statement last year while attaching the assets of Devas Multimedia.
The Devas Multimedia-Antrix Corporation agreement was annulled by the UPA government in February 2011 — in the backdrop of the alleged 2G scam in the telecom sector and allegations of a sweet heart deal — by citing usage of the S-band spectrum allocated to Devas for security purposes.
After the NDA government came to power in 2014, the CBI was asked to investigate the deal.
In August 2016, the CBI filed a chargesheet against eight officials from Devas, ISRO and Antrix linked to the 2005 deal for “being party to a criminal conspiracy with an intent to cause undue gain to themselves or others by abusing official positions’’. Among the eight persons chargesheeted by CBI is former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair.
The CBI has accused former ISRO officials and Devas of causing a loss of approximately Rs. 578 crore to the Indian government through the 2005 deal.