Kochi: Union Minister Vayalar Ravi today said it is up to the Kerala government to decide whether or not to initiate action against three police officers, who initially probed the ISRO espionage case, which led to the exit of Congress Chief Minister K Karunakaran in mid 90s.
The Overseas Indian Affairs Minister said this while replaying to a query on a plea by Congress MLA K
Muraleedharan, son of K Karunakaran, seeking action against the three police officers who had “concoted” the espionage case.
“There is nothing wrong in Muraleedharan’s plea,” he told reporters on the sidelines on a function.
AFP
Muralidharan has written to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, saying it was ‘mysterious’ that a Congress government had decided to drop the action proposed by CBI against the three officials — Siby Mathews, Chief Information Commissioner and former Deputy Inspector General (CRIME), who headed the Special Investigation Team to probe the case in 1994, S Vijayan, former Circle Inspector Special Branch and K K
Joshua, then DYSP SIT.
The Oommen chandy government had ordered closure of the file relating to the CBI recommendation on action against the three officials for “unprofessional” conduct of the case.
Former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan along with five others including another space scientist were charged by police in the case, but exonerated by the court after a CBI probe.
The two scientists and four others including two Maldivian women were accused of transferring certain secret documents on India’s space programme to foreign countries.
The Kerala High Court had last month directed the government to pay Rs 10 lakh as compensation to Narayanan, triggering a debate on taking action against three police officials for their “unprofessional conduct”.
PTI
