The Supreme Court has set aside the Kerala High Court order granting anticipatory bail to former police officers in the 1994 ISRO espionage case. The CBI had filed the appeal against the HC order granting anticipatory bail to the five accused of being involved in the conspiracy to frame ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan.
The SC also remanded back the bail applications to the lower court, instructing it to decide on the same within four weeks. The accused will have protection from the arrest as an interim arrangement for five weeks till HC decides on the matter, Live Law quoted the Supreme Court order.
The accused in the conspiracy case include former Kerala DGP Siby Mathews, former intellegence and police officers P.S. Jayaprakash, Thampi S. Durga Dutt, Vijayan and R.B Sreekumar.
While additional Solicitor General SV Raju appeared for the CBI, senior advocate Kapil Sibal appeared for some of the respondents.
The Supreme Court had reserved the order on November 28. During the hearing, the CBI had argued the "possibility of a larger conspiracy involving foreign powers" which ended up in stalling the technology to develop the cryogenic engine by decades. The agency had challenged the bail granted to the accused at the "threshold" of its investigation.
The High Court, while granting them bail, had observed that there was "not even a scintilla of evidence" to suggest the police officers were influenced by any foreign power that prompted them conspire to falsely implicate Nambi Narayanan in the case so as to hinder with the activities of ISRO with regard to development of the cryogenic engine.
However, during the hearing, the SC observed that the Kerala High Court has committed certain wrongs.
"It has not dealt with Justice Jain committee report, individual allegations not examined. High Court High Court should deal with individual cases individually", the bench had observed during the hearing.
The ISRO case was later disproved and Dr Nambi Narayanan was awarded a compensation of Rs 50 lakhs in 2018 for his illegal arrest and custodial torture, the Supreme Court.
