Govt yet to decide on Nair's request, says PMO

The government is yet to take a call on former Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman G Madhavan Nair's request to the Prime Minister's Office to order an inquiry into the reasons behind annulment of the controversial Antrix-Devas deal and the procedure followed.

Asked about Nair's letter addressed to him in this regard, Minister in PMO, V Narayanasamy told PTI that he has not seen it.

"He (Nair) writes a letter and gives it to the media," he  said, apparently expressing displeasure. "Let me go through it and then we will decide".

In the recent letter, Nair said on Sunday he had point-by-point explained vis-a-vis charges against him, including that he "put a least penalty clause" (in the contract) and that "defence requirements were not met".

Noting that the B K Chaturvedi-Roddam Narasimha committee had probed all aspects of the deal till December 2009, Nair said he has asked the government to conduct an  independent enquiry from December 2009 onwards on "what all happened".

"I also told them (in the letter) that we lost a golden opportunity (by annulling the contract). What needs to be enquired into is the reasons for cancelling the contract and process and procedure that went behind that."

"And also the recent ways of handling files by the Department of Space (with respect to the cancelled contract) have to be looked into," he said, apparently wanting the government to throw light on the role played by ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan in cancelling the deal.

He said the Antrix-Devas deal was "such an excellent contract. It would have brought new technologies to the country. It (the satellite under the deal) was about to be launched. What forced them to make such cancellation and then create all this drama afterwards?"