New Delhi: More than two years after the Supreme Court ordered a three-member committee to probe if the Kerala Police had falsely implicated former ISRO scientist S. Nambi Narayanan of spying, the panel will hold its first sitting on 14 and 15 December.
Led by former Supreme Court judge Justice D.K. Jain, the committee will meet Narayanan and the Kerala Police officers who had accused him of being a Pakistani spy in 1994.
The CBI had exonerated the scientist within two years of his arrest and filed a closure report in the case. The agency had also held a few Kerala Police officers responsible for Narayanan’s illegal arrest.
The Supreme Court had in September 2018 said that Narayanan was “arrested unnecessarily, harassed and subjected to mental cruelty” in the espionage case, and ordered a probe into the role of police officers involved in it.
Speaking to ThePrint, Narayanan confirmed to have received a call from the panel to meet its members. “They telephoned me to say that the panel will be hold its sitting in the state capital and would like to meet me. However, I have not been told the time and date of the meeting,” he said.
He refused to comment on the delay in the probe, but said the panel must have taken time to read the case documents and familiarise itself with the sequence of events. “It is an old case and there are a lot of documents to study. There is a lot of groundwork that needs to be done to understand this case.”
Narayanan also said, “It is technically delayed by a year, because 2020 got consumed by the ensuing pandemic.”
Also read: The fake ‘spy thriller’ that cost Nambi Narayanan his career, life savings and self-esteem
The panel
In the espionage case, which made headlines in 1994, the Kerala Police had alleged transfer of confidential documents about India’s space programme to foreign countries by two scientists and four others, including two Maldivian women.
Narayanan approached the top court in 2015, against a Kerala High Court’s judgment that no action was required to be taken against former DIG Siby Mathews and two other officers, K.K. Joshua and S. Vijayan, who were later held responsible by the CBI for the scientist’s illegal arrest.
Narayanan also claimed that the case had a “catastrophic effect” on his career and personal life. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan last year.
A three-judge bench, led by the then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, had entrusted the Justice Jain panel to specifically inquire into the role of police officers Mathew, Vijayan and Joshua.
As directed by the court, both the central and Kerala governments had also nominated retired civil servants as members of the panel. While Kerala appointed former additional chief secretary V.S. Senthil, the Centre chose former IAS officer B.K. Prasad. There was, however, no deadline fixed for the panel to conclude its probe.
The bench also awarded Rs 50 lakh compensation to Narayanan for “being subjected to mental cruelty” and ordered the Kerala government to pay the compensation within eight weeks.
‘Hope the panel completes its probe soon’
Reacting to the development, Narayanan said he was happy that the committee will have its first sitting next week.
“They contacted me to find out if the two dates were convenient and agreed to hold the meeting when I said yes,” Narayanan said.
The former scientist also said he has been waiting patiently for his legal battle to end. His case in the top court was adjourned 19 times before a final verdict was delivered in 2018, three years after Narayanan had filed it.
For now, he hopes that the panel completes its probe soon so that the erring officials are punished for the wrong they committed, said the scientist.
Also read: ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan says Kalam wanted him to give up fight, but he refused