After the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a charge sheet against former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief Madhavan Nair and others in connection with the Antrix-Devas scam, Nair on Thursday said the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had given an "absolutely" clean chit as far as the contract is concerned.
"If you look at this contract, it is absolutely same as what we have signed with other parties like Tata Sky, CTV, Sun TV and others, and now all these companies have made commercial gains, for that ISRO is not responsible. ISRO is responsible only for giving them the transponder capacity, on a first-come-first-serve basis. This issue has been reviewed by very high-level committee in the country, the Pratyush Sinha Committee and the Chaturvedi committee.
"Both these committees could not find anything wrong in this agreement. The Chaturvedi Committee has especially stated that it was the much-needed technology for the country and we should not lose the opportunity. Now, finally the CAG, which has raised the flag that about Rs. 2.8 lakh crores lass has been made to the government etc, which they reversed. They say there is no loss to the government, if at all, we would have earned a revenue of nearly Rs. 1,300 crores at the end of that. So, they have given an absolutely clean chit as far as the contract is concerned," he told ANI.
He further said, "There was a child, who was born and was properly growing, but somebody has murdered him. On the murdered charge the international court slapped a fine on the person, who has done that or the agency that has done that, now they are finding about the origin of the child, this what is exactly happening now. Instead of inquiring into how the government was mislead on this contract and how the illegal action for the termination of this contract was taken by the department head at that time, still the CBI eyes at the origin of the contract," he added.
"In that context, they were making money by selling the shares etc, cannot be attributed as reason for charge-sheeting ISRO officers. What needs to be done is who is responsible for the cancellation of the contract, and who has mislead the government on this issue, and finally the fine of one billion dollar is too much, which the country can afford, so instead of getting into inquiry of that sort, they are probably beating a dead cow. It is clearly established by the entire inquiry forum that there was nothing wrong with the agreement. It would have brought in the hand held communication in the country, and earned revenue of Rs.1,300 crores," he said.
"Such a positive contract, based on which, how can they raise allegations against the people who are responsible for the contract? We could not understand the rationale behind it," he added.
Besides Nair, former Managing Director of Forge Advisors and CEO of Devas, Ramachandra Vishwanathan, and the then Director of Devas, M G Chandrasekhar, have also been named in the CBI charge sheet.