Nair writes to PMO: being made scapegoats,order re-probe

This is a serious mistake on the part of the Department of Space.

Claiming that the government action against him and three of his colleagues was ill-conceived and based on misleading information,former ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair has demanded a fresh investigation to probe not just the Antrix-Devas deal but also all the subsequent steps leading up to the cancellation of the agreement in February last year.

In a letter to V Narayanasamy,Minister of State in Prime Ministers Office,Nair has made a point by point rebuttal of the charges levelled against him and three colleagues for their role in the 2005 agreement involving the lease of a part of Indias S-band space spectrum to Devas Multimedia,a Bangalore-based private company. These scientists A Bhaskarnarayana,K R Sridharmurthi and K N Shankara,apart from Nair were blacklisted by the government last month on the basis of findings of two committees that had been set up last year to inquire into the agreement.

8230;The current scenario has arisen out of gross misjudgment and giving wrong inputs to the Space Commission8230; misleading the Space Commission and the government. This is a serious mistake on the part of the Department of Space. All recent actions are towards covering up these mistakes and finding scapegoats, Nair has written in the letter.

This is Nairs first direct communication with the government since he was blacklisted last month.

He has said that of the two committees that probed the deal last year,he fully endorses the recommendations of the one comprising B K Chaturvedi and Roddam Nar-asimha. But the other one,led by former CVC Pratyush Sinha,had condemned them without even giving them a chargesheet or an opportunity to prove our innocence.

Narasimha,a veteran aerospace scientist,resigned as member of Space Commission on Thursday protesting against the treatment meted out to Nair and others.

Nair has also blamed the Department of Space which effectively means ISRO for not disclosing the recommendations of the B N Suresh Committee which the present ISRO chief,K Radhakrishnan,had appointed immediately after taking charge in November 2009 to review the Devas agreement. He has claimed that the B N Suresh Committee had not recommended the cancellation of the Devas agreement but only said that it needed to be re-negotiated in the light of societal/ security needs. According to Nair,that committee had also concluded that while finalising the Devas agreement,same procedures,as in case of other agreements for leasing transponder capacity,was followed.

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Nair has said that the findings of the Suresh Committee,which had submitted its report in June 2010,had not been properly presented before the Space Commission meeting in July 2010 that recommended the cancellation of the Devas agreement. He then goes on to counter the inputs that were given to Space Commission:

Proper procedure was not followed in finalising the agreement: Suresh committee had concluded that the procedures followed in Devas agreement were same as in any other transponder lease.

Insat Coordination Committee ICC was not consulted: As per the Satcom policy,ICC had authorised Department of Space to lease out transponder capacity to private users.

Cabinet was not adequately informed: The notes before Space Commission and the Cabinet for seeking approval for the satellites that were to carry transponders meant for Devas were on similar lines as those in case of any other proposal for funding new communication satellites. It was never the practice to mention the name of specific private users in such proposals.

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Spectrum was needed for security needs: Already 80 MHz band in this region of 150 MHz is reserved for such security needs in four orbital slots. Only about 20 MHz will be used in the near future. G-SAT6 one of the two satellites in question was to use the 70 MHz that has been allotted exclusively for broadcast purpose. This cannot be reallocated for any other purpose without fresh negotiation with ITU Geneva-based International Telecommunication Union.

You can see that the information provided to the Space Commission was not accurate. Does this not amount to misleading the Space Commission, Nair has said.

He has also questioned the over six-month delay in conveying the recommendation of the Space Commission to cancel the agreement to the Cabinet for final decision. He has listed some other recommendations made by the Space Commission at the same meeting which have still not been implemented.

I can go on citing many such examples in which the department of space has failed to take timely action and conduct internal reviews in a transparent manner involving the concerned specialists and discuss it with peers who were knowledgeable in this deal, he has said.

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In the light of above,I strongly believe that the action on ISRO scientists is ill-conceived and implemented in violation of all established norms and procedures under the cloud of secrecy. Based on the above inputs,I would request you to constitute an appropriate committee to review all aspects of Devas agreement starting from establishing the agreement progress of the project,reasons and reviews conducted towards recommending the annulment and all actions taken based on Chaturvedi committee and Pratyush Sinha panel. This will only bring out the real issues and what is the wrongdoing and who is responsible for it, he has said.