Centre urges SC to accept Justice DK Jain report in Nambi Narayanan case
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Delhi, April 05:In an attempt to serve justice to the ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan, the center urged the Supreme Court to open the sealed copy of the report on the illegal arrest of former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan. It had further asked the SC to take strict action against the delinquent police officials who had attempted to frame scientist, Nambi Narayanan in case.
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, requested the top court to take up the report for passing appropriate orders on Tuesday. Mehta submitted that the matter is of national importance.
"The present application has been filed by the Applicant Union of India to beseech this Hon’ble Court to accept on record, the report filed by the Committee headed by Justice D.K. Jain in the present appeal, and to pass necessary directions and/or orders, to give effect to the suggestions in the said report, regarding steps to take against the erring officials," the application said.
Hearing in the matter, a bench headed by Chief Justice S.A. Bobde said there is no doubt that the matter is important, but there is no urgency in hearing it. The top court, however, agreed to hear the matter next week.
The report is formed by the panel led by the retired SC Justice DK Jain. The panel has recently submitted its report to the Apex court.
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In 2018 Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra had set up a three-member panel led by Justice (retd) DK Jain to ascertain whether action needs to be taken against erring police officials.
What was the ISRO espionage case?
In 1994 when Narayanan was arrested on charges of espionage along with another senior official of ISRO, two Maldivian women, and a businessman. However when CBI which took over the case in 1996 also had observed that "the ISRO espionage case accusing Narayanan of wrongdoing is false, and there is no evidence to back the charges. He was later acquitted of all charges in 1998.
After the case was transferred to CBI, the premier investigating body discovered that then top police officials in the SIT team in Kerala were responsible for Narayanan's illegal arrest. In 2018, the SC directed the Kerala government to give Narayanan a compensation of Rs 50 lakh, as he underwent "immense humiliation."