The unseemly fight that has broken out between followers of two top Indian scientists - and indeed the scientists themselves - shows the serious chasm in a community that is revered: not just by the incumbent National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government but also the previous United Progressive Alliance. The issue relates to the international arbitration verdict in the affairs of two companies, Antrix and Devas Multimedia Private Ltd (henceforth Devas). Basic issues of integrity, legal and other housekeeping and the marketisation of state-developed science have been obscured by dollar signs and zeroes.
At this point, there seem to be two main Indian actors: Dr G Madhavan Nair, Padma Vibhushan, previously chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), secretary to the department of space and chairman of the Space Mission; and his successor, Dr K Radhakrishnan, who took over all of Nair's charges when Nair stepped down in the wake of a controversy.
What was the controversy?
Antrix was the commercial arm of Isro, devised in 1992 to marketise at least some of the research the organisation does. It naturally needed participation of the private sector. A contract between Antrix and Devas was signed in 2005. Devas, a company which had provided - as far back as 2003 - ideas to Isro, about ways in which S-band spectrum could be developed and marketed, was incorporated as an Indian company in 2004. On its website, Devas described itself as "an Indian company headquartered in Bangalore, which was founded in 2004 by a team of successful satellite entrepreneurs and executives".
In 2004, it had two shareholders and a paid up capital of Rs 1,00,000. Of this, Rs 90,000 was paid by a middle-level employee of Isro. The second shareholder, who contributed the remainder Rs 10,000, was a Class IV employee and had been the PA (at Isro) to the man who later became chairman of Devas, M G Chandrasekhar. Chandrasekhar himself was an Isro employee from 1988 to 1997.
Chandrasekhar had interesting ideas about developing and marketing S-band spectrum. This frequency band is unique because it has a substantial amount of spectrum (190 MHz) that can be put to use for mobile services. In India, the Department of Space was given 150 Mhz 30 years ago for broadcast satellite service and mobile satellite service. It could put this to commercial use. But commercialising it needed money.
Under Chandrasekhar, Devas and Antrix signed a deal to provide mobile and multimedia services through satellite (PS I and PS II, being developed by ISRO) anywhere in the country. This agreement was like others signed with operators like Tata Sky, Dish TV, Airtel etc to lease transponder capacity. By now, Chandrasekhar had sounded out private investment to raise money for the venture. The agreement was a $300 million (around Rs 2,000 crore) contract to allot 70 MHz of scarce S-band space segment to Devas through the transponders of Isro's communication satellites. Payments by Devas were to be made over 12 years.
What of Isro? Madhavan Nair was heading Isro. He says the responsibility of Antrix was only to provide transponder capacity, pointing out that Isro was not authorised to allot spectrum or give the licence to anyone, which is the responsibility of Department of Telecommunications. The arrangement between Antrix and Devas would have benefited the country. The government argued that procedurally, the deal was wrong.
Worse, till this point, Devas was very far from seeking a licence to actually launch commercial application of S-band spectrum.
In 2009, a whistle-blower at Isro, a disgruntled scientist, first spoke of illegality in the Antrix Devas deal. In 2010, the Space Commission recommended annulment of the contract. Nair was asked to step down. K Radhakrishnan became the new chairman. 2011-12 were the years of scams. Radhakrishnan took the matter to the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) though Nair claims no security issues were involved. The CCS annulled the contract and returned the advance to Devas.
In 2012, Chandrasekhar stepped down as chairman of the Devas board. He was replaced by former vice-chairman and president of Verizon, Lawrence T Babbio. Devas decided to take the matter for international arbitration - twice because the government of India had terminated the contract illegally. India lost both sets of arbitration. Nair has a different take on the events. He says that the agreement was cancelled to help Devas and 'protect' then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh.
But India has had to pay a heavy price for all this intrigue. You cannot argue with two sets of arbitration, both of which have gone in Devas' favour, involving a likely punitive compensation upwards of $672 million (around Rs 4,500 crore). Just to put this figure in perspective, in 2015-16, India spent Rs 4,373 crore on the country's national rural drinking water programme.
All because of two sets of squabbling scientists?
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