ISRO espionage case: SC sets aside Kerala HC order granting pre-arrest bail to accused officials

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The Supreme Court on Friday set aside the Kerala High Court order granting anticipatory bail to four people in connection with the 1994 ISRO espionage case related to the alleged framing of scientist Nambi Narayanan.

A bench comprising Justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar was hearing the matter and set it back to the Kerala HC to decide the pleas afresh within four weeks, as per Bar and Bench. The accused won’t be arrested in the interim period for five weeks, it noted.

The order was passed on a plea by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against a Kerala HC order that had granted relief to the accused.

In August last year, the Kerala HC had granted anticipatory bail to former Gujarat DGP RB Sreekumar and three others in a case that was being probed by the CBI relating to an alleged conspiracy to frame former ISRO scientist Narayanan in the 1994 spy case.

The scientist was falsely accused of selling crucial secrets associated with the nation’s space technology to Pakistan in 1994. Though he was later acquitted by a CBI court and the Supreme Court in 1998, he had spent a total of 50 days in prison along with his fellow scientist D Sasikumar and four others.

In 2018, he was compensated Rs 50 lakh by the apex court for “unnecessary arrest, harassment and mental cruelty.” Two years later, the Kerala government also handed over an additional compensation of Rs 1.30 crore to the former scientist in the case that has also attracted political standoffs.

In June 2021, the CBI booked former Intelligence Bureau deputy director RB Sreekumar and 16 other police personnel, including former Kerala police officer S Vijayan, over the alleged conspiracy.

While filing a plea in the Kerala HC last year, S Vijayan alleged that Narayanan had influenced the CBI probe by entering into land deals worth crores with then-investigating officials of the central agency. Several months later, the HC dismissed the petition.

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