* Antrix Corporation Limited, a commercial arm of Department of Space, and Devas Multimedia Private Limited, entered into an agreement on January 28, 2005, after two years of negotiations. As per this agreement, Antrix Corporation agreed to lease 90 per cent capacity of satellite-based S band spectrum on GSAT-6 and GSAT-6A satellites at a cost of $300 million over 12 years. There were penalty charges to be paid by Antrix in case of late delivery of satellites or performance failures or service interruptions.
* To implement the agreement, Antrix committed to build and launch two satellites by ISRO. G. Madavan Nair was Chairman, ISRO / Secretary DOS/ Chairman of Antrix Board and Chairman of Space Commission when the deal was signed.
* Earlier, in March 2003, Antrix signed a MOU with Forge Advisors, USA, to explore opportunities in digital multimedia services. Later, principals of Forge Advisors, USA established an Indian company, Devas Multimedia Services Pvt Ltd. In 2008, Deutsche Telekom, Germany, garnered a minority stake in it.
* According to the agreement, Devas provided an upfront capacity reservation fee of 20 million per satellite and annual lease charges starting at $9 million per satellite and going up to $11.25 million. The amount payable by Devas was 300 million over a period of 12 years. Devas so far made a payment of Rs 58.37 crore as upfront capacity reservation fee for two satellites.
* On receipt of complaints, ISRO set up a committee headed by Dr B N Suresh in December 2009 to review and examine legal, commercial, procedural and technical aspects of this agreement. The recommendations of this committee have not been made public.
* The Space Commission on July 2, 2010, directed Antrix Corporation to annul this agreement citing the need of S Band for strategic requirements, including societal ones which have come up recently and which were not contemplated at the time of signing the agreement.
* The Cabinet Committee on Security headed by Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India, annulled this agreement on 17-Feb-2011 citing strategic requirements.
* Besides the Union Government constituted a high-power review committee to review technical, commercial, procedural and financial aspects of this agreement. The committee consisted of Mr B.K. Chaturvedi, Member of Planning Commission and former Cabinet Secretary and Prof Roddam Narasimha, Member Space Commission.
* Subsequently, another committee headed by former CVC Pratyush Sinha was set up to look into matters of individual culpability and fix responsibility. The five-member panel including Dr K Radhakrishnan, Chairman, ISRO, reportedly named four technocrats and three IAS officers, including its ex-officio member-secretary and additional secretary, DOS, Dr Raghunandan Nadadur.
* The reports of both these probe panels have been marked secret and stashed away by DOS. Dr Madhavan Nair and others have not been served an official order with reasons for punitive action.