The Antrix-Devas deal had seen early exit of G Madhavan Nair as Chairman of ISRO.
Former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair has been named as one of the accused by the Central Bureau of Investigation in its chargesheet in the Antrix-Devas deal case today.
Others named in the chargesheet are former executive director of Antrix Corporation Limited KR Sridhar Murthy, former managing director of USA-based Forge advisors LLC Ramachandra Vishwanathan, former president and CEO of Bangalore-based Devas Multimedia, former directors of Devas Multimedia MG Chandrasekhar, D Venugopal and M Umesh, former additional secretary Department of Space Veena S Rao and former ISRO director Bhaskar Rao.
The CBI has levelled charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating and corruption against these individuals.
"There was nothing wrong in the deal and I do not know how the chargesheet has come. There was vested interest behind this and the previous ISRO chairman K.Radhakrishnan had given wrong statements," said Mr Nair.
The Rs 1400 crore deal was inked in January 2005 between Antrix and Devas Multimedia Limited to deliver video, multimedia and information services to mobile receivers and mobile phones through satellite. ISRO was meant to build and launch two satellites, to lease out to Devas for this purpose. As per the chargesheet, guidelines set by the space department were not followed in signing the deal with Devas Multimedia.
In the agreement with Antrix, Devas had claimed that they had ownership and rights to use intellectual property used in designing digital multimedia receivers and commercial information devices. But the CBI has found that it was a false claim.
Approval for building of the satellite was also sought by Antrix after suppressing facts from the union cabinet, as per the CBI.
The loss to the government exchequer is estimated to be Rs 578 crore, but the investigative agency says their probe is on and the figure might be revised.
Recently an international tribunal in Hague had concluded that the annulling of the Antrix-Devas contract by the Indian government in 2009 was "unfair" and "inequitable" and ordered the government to pay damages to the tune of Rs 6000 crore.