Former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan on Thursday opposed the anticipatory bail plea filed by Siby Mathews, former Director General of Police and former probe officer of the ISRO spy case which wrongfully agrained Nambi Narayanan as the accused. Opposing the pre-arrest bail plea filed by Siby Mathew, who is now booked by the CBI for conspiracy and fabrication of documents, Nambi Narayanan told the court that it was Siby who had tortured him the most, reports Mathrubhumi. Last week, Siby Mathews had secured interim bail in the case.
According to the report, Nambi Narayanan moved as one of the respondents in the anticipatory bail plea filed by Siby Mathews at Thiruvananthapuram district court. The plea will be considered again on July 7. Meanwhile, after giving a statement to the CBI team probing the conspiracy angle in the 1994 espionage case, Nambi Narayanan told PTI that he told the agency the truth and "nothing but the truth".
"I only told the truth and nothing but the truth," Narayanan told PTI, but refused to say anything more on what he told the agency. He said the CBI recorded his statement on June 30, but not on July 1 and that he cannot say whether the agency will be recording his statement tomorrow or any date after that. "They took my statement yesterday. Today (July 1) they did not come to me. No idea if they will record my statement tomorrow," he said.
The Supreme Court had on April 15 ordered that the report of a high-level committee on the role of erring police officials in the 1994 espionage case relating to Narayanan be given to the CBI and directed the agency to conduct further investigation on the issue. The three-member committee, headed by former apex court judge Justice (retd) DK Jain, was appointed by the top court in 2018 after acquitting Narayanan in the case.
The top court had also directed the Kerala government to cough up Rs 50 lakh as compensation for compelling Narayanan to undergo "immense humiliation". It had ordered setting up of the committee to take appropriate steps against the erring officials for causing "tremendous harassment" and "immeasurable anguish" to Narayanan and had directed the Union and state governments to nominate one officer each in the panel.
The apex court, in its April 15 order, had said that the CBI may treat the panel's findings as part of a preliminary investigation and asked the agency to submit its report to the court within three months. The probe agency has reportedly invoked around 10 sections of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to various crimes, including criminal conspiracy, kidnapping and fabrication of evidence.
Terming the police action against the ex-scientist of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) as a "psycho-pathological treatment", the apex court had in September 2018 said that his "liberty and dignity", basic to his human rights, were jeopardised as he was taken into custody and, eventually, despite all the glory of the past, was compelled to face "cynical abhorrence".
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 scientist was arrested when the Congress was heading the government in Kerala. 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 a political fallout, with a section in Congress targeting the then Chief Minister late K Karunakaran over the issue, which eventually led to his resignation.
Watch TNM's interview with Nambi Narayanan:
The 79-year-old former scientist, who was given a clean chit by the CBI, had earlier said that the Kerala police had "fabricated" the case and the technology he was charged with having 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 Mathews and two retired Superintendents of Police KK Joshua and S Vijayan, who were later held responsible by the CBI for the scientist's illegal arrest.
The CBI, while giving a clean chit to the scientist, had said Mathews had left "the entire investigation to IB surrendering his duties" and ordered indiscriminate arrest of the scientist and others without adequate evidence being on record.
The case had drawn attention in October 1994 when Maldivian national Rasheeda was arrested in Thiruvananthapuram for allegedly obtaining secret drawings of ISRO rocket engines to sell to Pakistan. Narayanan, the then director of the cryogenic project at ISRO, was arrested along with the then ISRO Deputy Director D Sasikumaran and Fousiya Hasan, a Maldivian friend of Rasheeda.
(With inputs from PTI)