Govt action gives handle to Devas,says scientist

The core issue of the value of the deal to ISRO and Indian space business has been completely missed throughout.

Former Indian Space Research Organisation chairman G Madhavan Nairs outburst against his successor K Radhakrishna after being barred from taking up government duties for his alleged role in the Antrix-Devas S-band deal is a diversion of the core issue at hand of the deal itself,says a top ISRO official who has also been barred along with Nair.

According to K R Sridharmurthi,the former managing director of Antrix Corporation,ISROs commercial arm,who literally inked the deal with Devas,the core issue is that the deal itself was a good one when inked but has been mistakenly compared commercially with telecom spectrum licensing in the aftermath of the 2G scam.

It is like comparing apples and oranges. The core issue of the value of the deal to ISRO and Indian space business has been completely missed throughout. Blaming somebody now is also a diversion. The deal was done to the best of my knowledge with the interest of the country and ISRO in mind. If there were procedural lapses in what we did,the government should lay down the new procedure not ban people who worked diligently, Sridharmurthi said.

He refused to be drawn into Nairs allegation that the current ISRO chairman had a personal agenda in the ban since Radhakrishna had once been disciplined when he worked under Sridharmurthi and a chairman of Devas,M G Chandrashekhar.

Like Nair,he is,however,of the view that barring of former senior ISRO officials linked with the Devas deal would work against the government when it comes up against legal proceedings initiated by Devas for the annulment of the 2005 deal.

The government has said that it has annulled the deal due to a change of priorities and the need for use of the S-band spectrum for strategic purposes. It is however conceding ground to Devas by this action of barring officials involved in the deal, Sridharmurthi said.

He said the government jumped the gun in annulling the deal. The agreement to lease transponders to Devas did not amount to granting access to telecommunication spectrum. For this the company would have had to approach DoT which is the licensing authority and this could have been used for further negotiations of terms.

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According to Nair,the governments action to bar officials is like giving a good handle to Devas in its tussle with the government over the annulment of the deal.

Nair has specifically blamed the current ISRO chairman for misleading the government by re-writing the report of the B N Suresh committee to cast doubts on the deal despite the original report stating that the deal would bring technological value to the country.

Radhakrishnan himself has corrected the B N Suresh committee report and rewritten it for the space commission. So,this virtually amounts to misleading the government on the whole issue, Nair said. Radhakrishnan has not reacted to the accusations.

Limited resources,may not be able to fight legal battle: Sridharmurthi

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Saddened by the blacklisting order against him,K R Sridharmurthi says he has no clue who to approach or how to clarify his role in the controversial space deal,for which he has apparently been penalised.

He said he had still not been officially informed about the government decision or told what his crime was. No one has approached me from government and I dont know where to go to find out. I dont know what are the options ahead of me to redeem my honour and credibility, he said.

If I am finally left with only the legal option,I will still have to decide whether that is feasible though it may seem the most desirable way. I dont think I would be able to fight the government in a legal battle. I have limited resources,limited energy and time and spending the rest of my life worrying about a court case is not exactly how I would like to spend my retirement years, he said.