While former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair is pinning his hopes on prime minister Manmohan Singh to give him a fair trial despite being indicted in the High Level Team report, the prime minister’s office (PMO) has made it clear that it has no plans of revoking the ban imposed on him and three of his former colleagues.
Minister of state, PMO, V Narayanaswamy, told DNA over phone on Sunday that the ban imposed on Nair and three of his former colleagues A Bhaskarnarayana, former scientific secretary; KN Shankara, former director Isro Satellite Centre and KR Sridharamurthi, former director Antrix Corporation from holding any government jobs would not be revoked. “There is no question of revoking the ban as it is clearly mentioned in the probe reports as to why a ban was imposed on them,” he said.
The reports of the two committees — the High Powered Review Committee with BK Chaturvedi and Prof Roddam Narasimha as members, and the High Level Team chaired by Pratyush Sinha — which was released late Saturday night has stated that there have been several lapses of judgement on the part of Nair and his former colleagues. The two committees were setup by the government to probe the irregularities of the controversial Antrix-Devas deal.
He also said reports have stated that Nair and the other scientists were given ample opportunities to appear before the committee and explain their stand, which is contrary to what Nair has been stating since the ban was imposed on him.
“He has been misleading the country that he was not given an opportunity to meet the members of the committee,” he said.
Reacting to the two reports Nair said that while the report of the High Powered Review Committee was fair, the High Level Team chaired by Pratyush Sinha was conducted in a unilateral manner wherein he (Nair) and the other scientists were not given an opportunity to explain their roles.
He also questioned why the High Level Team had only released a portion of the report and not the entire one as did the High Powered Review Committee.
On his future course of action, Nair said he has appealed to the prime minister and hoped that he would be given an opportunity to explain his stand to him.
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