New Delhi| Dec,2 : The Supreme Court on Friday set aside anticipatory bail granted to four accused, including a former Director General of Police (DGP), in a case of alleged frame-up of scientist Nambi Narayanan in the 1994 ISRO espionage case. The court has remanded the matter back to the Kerala high court for fresh consideration of the anticipatory bail pleas of the accused individually.
A bench of Justices M R Shah and CT Ravikumar also directed the CBI not to arrest the four accused for five weeks. “All these appeals allowed. Impugned orders granting anticipatory bail passed by HC are quashed and set aside. All matters are remitted back to the HC to be decided afresh on it own merits. This court had not observed anything on merits for either of the parties. “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,” the bench said.
The Central Bureau of Investigation, based on the Supreme Court order in 2018, had registered case against former Gujarat DGP RB Sreekumar, two former police officers of Kerala — S Vijayan and Thampi S Durga Dutt, and a retired intelligence official P S Jayaprakash who investigated the role of Nambi Narayanan. The officials moved the Kerala high court seeking anticipatory bail which was granted by the court.
The CBI challenged the order in the Supreme Court. The probe agency also said 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 of the accused individually.
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 Narayanan’s illegal arrest. The apex court had on September 14, 2018 appointed a three-member committee while directing the Kerala government to cough up a ₹ 50 lakh compensation for compelling Narayanan to undergo “immense humiliation”.
Terming the police action against the ex-scientist of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) “psycho-pathological treatment”, the apex court had in September 2018 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”.
