Special Judge Virender Kumar Goyal was told by the CBI that the agency is yet to obtain the sanction to prosecute Veena S Rao after which the court posted the matter for further hearing on August 5.
The CBI had on May 1 informed the court that the sanction to prosecute ex-ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair and others -- A Bhaskar Narayana Rao, the then Director in ISRO; and K R Sridhar Murthy, the then Executive Director of Antrix -- has been received.
The agency had on August 11 last year filed a charge sheet against the accused, alleging that they had caused a loss of Rs 578 crore to the exchequer by abusing their official position to favour a private company.
The case relates to leasing of S-Band, a restricted wavelength of the INSAT satellites to deliver video, multimedia and information services to mobile receivers in vehicles and mobile phones to Devas Multimedia by Antrix.
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The charge sheet had accused the then Secretary, Department of Space, Chairman, ISRO and Antrix Corporation Madhavan Nair, Devas Multimedia and seven others of criminal conspiracy, cheating and under provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act.
Besides Nair, Narayan Rao, Veena S Rao and Murthy, others named in the charge sheet as accused included Devas Multimedia Pvt Ltd, former Managing Director of Forge Advisors and CEO of Devas Ramachandra Vishwanathan and the then Director of Devas M G Chandrasekhar.