Kochi: Kerala High Court on Monday asked the state to reconsider its decision to exonerate Siby Mathews and two other top cops who investigated the ISRO espionage case and take action against the erring police officers.
The court also quashed the government order not to initiate action against the trio. The court made it clear that the action to be taken against the cops shall not be namesake, making the administration of justice a mockery.
The allegations in the CBI’s report against three officers were quite disturbing, the court said.
The state had decided not to take either disciplinary or criminal action against the then DIG (Crime) Siby Mathews, who is now the State Chief Information Commissioner, the then Circle Inspector (Special Branch) S. Vijayan and the then Superintendent of Police (Crime Branch) K.K. Joshuwa.
Justice A.V. Ramakrishna Pillai passed the order on an appeal by former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan seeking initiation of criminal case against the officers and seeking to quash the order issued by the government on June 29, 2011. The state should take a decision in three months.
The court lauded the scientist and flayed the state. “It was the PSLV developed by the ISRO which put the Mars orbiter into space. As a scientist of ISRO, Nambi Narayanan along with others has made contributions to the development of PSLV. While the spacecraft in the orbit rounds the Mars, Nambi continues his fight for justice,” the court observed.
The court observed that the state, which was enthusiastic in withdrawing the case from the CBI and handing it over to the state police, had not taken the report of the CBI seriously. The kind of seriousness expected from a welfare state was not shown by the state while dealing with the CBI report . “The conduct of the state was not above board,” the court observed.
Mr C. Unnikrishnan appearing for Mr Nambi argued that the CBI had sent a report to the state stating that there were lapses on the part of the earlier investigating officers of the police and Intelligence Bureau. The report of the CBI is still in force and none of the officers have challenged the findings. However, without any reasons, the state government had dropped all further proceedings against the officers.
