Antrix-Devas deal: Court grants time to CBI for getting

sanctions New Delhi, Aug 19 (PTI) A special court today granted CBItime till September 29 for getting appropriate sanction fromauthorities concerned to prosecute former senior officials inAntrix-Devas deal case including ex-ISRO chairman G MadhavanNair, even as it questioned the probe agency about delay infiling the charge sheet. "It is submitted by Investigating Officer that he isfiling documents today and that it will require some more timein receiving the sanction under Section 197 CrPC, which maytake about one month…," it said, posting the matter onSeptember 29. Special CBI Judge Vinod Kumar asked the probe officer asto why filing of the charge sheet in the case took such a longtime when the FIR was filed much earlier. The FIR was filed on March 16, 2015 against Nair and othersenior officials, accused of facilitating "wrongful" gain ofRs 578 crore to private multi-media company Devas by Antrix,the commercial arm of ISRO. CBI had on August 11 charged Nair and senior SpaceDepartment officials with causing a loss of Rs 578 crore tothe exchequer by abusing their official position to favour aprivate company. The case relates to leasing S-Band, restricted wavelengthof the INSAT satellites to deliver video, multimedia andinformation services to mobile receivers in vehicle and mobilephones to Devas Multimedia by Antrix. It was alleged in the FIR that the lease was given inviolation of rules causing undue gain of Rs 578 crore to DevasMultimedia and corresponding loss to the exchequer. The charge sheet had accused the then Secretary,Department of Space, Chairman, ISRO and Antrix CorporationMadhavan Nair, Devas Multimedia and seven others of criminalconspiracy, cheating and under provisions of Prevention ofCorruption Act. Besides Nair, others named in the charge sheet as accusedincluded the then Executive Director of Antrix K R SridharMurthy, former Managing Director of Forge Advisors and CEO ofDevas Ramachandra Vishwanathan, and the then Director of DevasM G Chandrasekhar. Former Additional Secretary in the Department of SpaceVeena S Rao, the then Director in ISRO A Bhaskar Narayana Raoand two directors of Devas Multimedia D Venugopal and M Umeshwere also named in the charge sheet as accused. PTI UKSC