New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday filed a chargesheet in the Antrix-Devas deal case naming former Isro chairman G. Madhavan Nair and senior officials who had been accused of facilitating the “wrongful” gain of Rs 578 crore to private multi-media company Devas, by Antrix, the commercial arm of Isro.
Others named in the chargesheet include the then executive director of Antrix K.R. Sridhar Murthy, former managing director of Forge Advisors and Devas CEO Ramachandra Vishwanathan, and the then director of Devas, M.G. Chandrasekhar.
The chargesheet comes a month after India lost its arbitration case in an international tribunal over Antrix scrapping a deal with Devas and is now liable to pay compensation which could run into millions of dollars.
Officials probing the Devas-Antrix deal said the officials had abused their position to favour Devas by giving it rights for delivery of videos, multimedia content and information services to mobile phones using S-Band through GSAT-6 and GSAT-6A satellites and terrestrial systems in India.
The accused officials “thus caused wrongful gain of Rs 578 crore” to the private firm and its owners, according to the CBI. Meanwhile, Former G. Madhavan Nair said that the scientists have been made “scapegoats” in the Antrix-Devas case after he was named in the chargesheet by the CBI.
