ISRO Espionage Case: SC Rejects Anticipatory Bail to Four Former Police Officers, Remit the Pleas Back to Kerala High Court

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Dec 2: The Supreme Court on Friday accepted a CBI appeal and quashed the anticipatory bail granted by the Kerala High Court to former police and intelligence officers including retired Kerala Director General of Police Siby Mathews accused of being part of a conspiracy to frame the former scientist of the Indian Space Research Orgnaisation Nambi Narayanan in an espionage case in 1994.

A bench comprising Justices M.R. Shah and C.T. Ravikumar remitted the anticipatory bail applications of the accused officers to the High Court for fresh consideration with a direction to list the case before the High Court Bench concerned within a week. The High Court was also asked to hear and finally decide the case at the earliest but not outside four weeks’ time.

“All these appeals allowed. Impugned orders granting anticipatory bail passed by high court are quashed and set aside. All matters are remitted back to the high court to be decided afresh on its own merits. This court had not observed anything on merits for either of the parties,” the bench said.

“It is ultimately for the high court to pass orders. We request the high court to decide the anticipatory bail applications at the earliest preferably within four weeks from date of this order,” it said.

The bench protected the accused, provided they cooperate with the investigation and without prejudice to the probe agencies, from arrest for the next five weeks till the High Court finally decided their anticipatory bail pleas. The Bench asked the High Court to decide their pleas without being influenced by the interim arrangement.

The Bench said it has not commented on the merits of the case. It was left to the High Court to pass an appropriate order on the anticipatory bail pleas in accordance with the law after considering the merits. The CBI had challenged the bail given by Kerala High Court to the accused including Mr. Mathews, PS Jayaprakash, Thampi S. Durga Dutt, Vijayan and the former Gujarat additional director general of police R.B Sreekumar. The Kerala high court had granted anticipatory bail to the four accused after they approached the court after CBI registered a case against them for their alleged role in the frame-up of scientist Nambi Narayanan.

Seeking cancellation of anticipatory bail, the CBI had said the grant of anticipatory bail might derail the investigation in the case. The probe agency also questioned how the high court clubbed the matter together instead of listening to the case individually. Based on the merits of individual cases, the court could have granted the accused bail, the probe agency argued.

Agreeing the probe agency appeal, the Supreme Court bench has now asked the Kerala high court for fresh consideration of the anticipatory bail pleas on individual basis.

The case, which had hit the headlines in 1994, was framed based on 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.

Nambi Narayanan, who was given a clean chit by the CBI, had earlier alleged the Kerala police had “fabricated” the case and the technology he was accused to have stolen and sold in the 1994 case did not even exist at that time. The CBI had said the then top police officials in Kerala were responsible for Mr Narayanan’s illegal arrest.

The top court had on September 14, 2018 appointed a three-member committee while directing the Kerala government to provide ₹ 50 lakh compensation to Nambi Narayanan for his “immense humiliation.” Terming the police action against the ex-scientist of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) “psycho-pathological treatment”, the top court had said 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 CBI had told the apex court about the possibility of a larger conspiracy involving some foreign powers which had stalled the technology to develop the cryogenic engine by decades. The agency had challenged the bail granted to the accused persons at the very “threshold” of its investigation.

“The frame-up led to the arrest of scientists. The technology for the cryogenic engine was deliberately stalled for at least two decades… May be a larger conspiracy involving foreign powers… Grant of anticipatory bail at the threshold may harm the investigation,” Additional Solicitor-General S.V. Raju, for the CBI, had submitted during the hearing.

The High Court, while granting anticipatory bail, had observed that there was “not even a scintilla of evidence” to suggest that the former police officers and intelligence officials were influenced by any foreign power so as to induce them to hatch a conspiracy to falsely implicate the scientists with the intention to stall the activities of the ISRO regarding the development of cryogenic engine.

The CBI had arraigned 18 people as accused in the case after the Supreme Court-appointed Justice D.K. Jain Committee found fault with them for booking cases against the scientists. The committee had also found that some of the accused were involved in the deliberate leakage of information to the media to create a narrative implicating the scientists and to arrest them without any material on record to show their involvement in the alleged espionage.