Probe panel submits report to SC on Nambi Narayanan’s illegal arrest

PTI

New Delhi

A high-level probe panel appointed by the Supreme Court to take erring cops to task for causing “tremendous harassment” and “immeasurable anguish” to ISRO scientist Dr Nambi Narayanan in the 1994 espionage case has submitted its report to the apex court, sources said.

The SC had on September 14, 2018 appointed the three-member panel headed by its former judge D K Jain while directing the Kerala government to cough up Rs 50 lakh compensation for compelling Narayanan to undergo “immense humiliation”.

The scientist was arrested when the Congress was heading the government in Kerala. The panel, after investigation, submitted its report in a sealed cover to the apex court recently.

The CBI, in its probe, had held that the then top police officials in Kerala were responsible for Narayanan’s illegal arrest.

The case also had its political fallout, with a section in the Congress targeting the then Chief Minister late K Karunakaran over the issue, that eventually led to his resignation.

Over a period of almost two-and-a-half years, the panel headed by Justice Jain examined the circumstances leading to the arrest.

The espionage case, which had hit the headlines in 1994, pertained to allegations of transfer of certain confidential documents on India’s space programme to foreign countries by two scientists and four others, including two Maldivian women.

The 79-year-old former scientist, who was given a clean chit by the CBI, maintained that the Kerala Police had “fabricated” the case and the technology he was accused to have stolen and sold in the 1994 case did not even exist at that time.

Narayanan had approached the apex court against a Kerala High Court judgement that said “no action needed to be taken” against former DGP Siby Mathews, who was then heading the SIT probe team, two retired superintendents of police, K K Joshua and S Vijayan, and the then Deputy Director, Intelligence Bureau, R B Shreekumar, who were later held responsible by the CBI for the scientist’s illegal arrest.

The apex court in its judgement had said, “We think that the obtaining factual scenario calls for constitution of a committee to find out ways and means to take appropriate steps against the erring officials.”

“The criminal law was set in motion without any basis. It was initiated, if one is allowed to say, on some kind of fancy or notion,” a bench headed by the then Chief Justice Dipak Misra had said.

“We are of the view that the appellant was arrested and he has suffered custody for almost 50 days. His arrest has been seriously criticised in the closure report of the CBI. From the aforesaid report, the harassment and mental torture faced by the appellant is obvious,” the bench had added.