ISRO Espionage Case: Kerala High Court Grants One Week Interim Anticipatory Bail To Accused

The Kerala High Court on Friday granted interim anticipatory bail to all the applicants, accused in the ISRO espionage case, for a period of one week. It emphasized that this does not preclude them from cooperating with the investigation. 

In a hearing that lasted over three hours, Justice Ashok Menon heard the anticipatory bail applications moved by several former investigating officers accused of conspiring against framing former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayan in the ISRO espionage case. The Judge will proceed with the hearing on 11th August. 

Submissions On Behalf Of RB Sreekumar

Senior Advocate S Sreekumar appearing on behalf of the retired Gujarat DGP RB Sreekumar submitted that there was no allegation that he had interrogated the scientist or that he had tortured him even in the suit field as early in 1999 against him.

It was also submitted that the entire investigation was video recorded and as per the instructions received by the Counsel, they were still available with the Intelligence Bureau. Upon perusal of the cassettes, the court itself had found that there was no case of torture in such investigation.

He added that the report prepared by DK Jain Committee cannot be the sole basis for assigning charges against the former officers and that CBI ought to conduct an independent investigation. It was additionally prayed that custodial interrogation was not necessary considering that he was 74 years old at present, and alleged that the prosecution had failed to make out a prima facie case for custodial interrogation. 

Submissions On Behalf Of PS Jayaprakash

Advocate Kaleeswaram Raj appearing for former Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer PS Jayaprakash also argued on similar lines pointing out that his client was a 72-year-old widower who recently underwent angioplasty. 

The Court's attention was also brought to the fact that the offences alleged against him were 26 years old.  The applicant was argued to be a middle-level officer merely obeying the order of his seniors while on duty. As such, he insisted that the ongoing investigation 'was a trap for the petitioner, and maybe even a trap for the court itself'.

It was also submitted that such a detailed investigation or discourse on evidence is unnecessary and that only a summary adjudication was warranted in the case at hand. The Counsel added that among all the charges levelled against his client, only one offence was non-bailable. "This is not a matter where the court has to think twice before using its judicial discretion to grant anticipatory bail to the petitioner," he claimed.

It was also submitted that the petitioner was not arrayed as a defendant in the proceedings even by Nambi Narayanan or the Maldivian women arrested in the case. Moreover, he added that in an anticipatory bail application, a free man approaches the court, and bail is the norm, while denial is the exception.  It was further urged that a 72-year-old may not be subjected to a detailed investigation in custody at this stage.

Submissions On Behalf Of S Vijayan and Thampi S Durga

Advocate Sasthamangalam Ajithkumar representing former Kerala police officers S. Vijayan and Thampi S. Durga condemned the delay in the investigation initiated by CBI. His arguments were rooted to the ground that they have been accused of events that occurred twenty-six years ago and that all offences except one (Section 365) alleged against them were bailable.

The Counsel added the petitioners were very low-ranking police officers working directly under the Commissioner of Police, Thiruvananthapuram. As per his arguments, Vijayan was in charge of inspecting the overstay of foreign nationals in the State. Accordingly, he came across one of the Maldivian women who was later accused of having a role n the ISRO espionage matter.

However, the petitioner had no role in the investigation or the interrogation of the woman. He was merely responsible for registering a case for overstay against her and that was the only action he took in the entire case, he alleged.

Submissions On Behalf Of CBI

Additional Solicitor General Senior Advocate SV Raju appearing on behalf of the CBI, strongly pressed for the custodial interrogation of all the petitioners while opposing the anticipatory bail applications. He argued that the fact that only of the offences charged against them was non-bailable and that some of them were not even a part of this offence was a matter of investigation. If the petitioners have no apprehension in the matter, there would no reason to file these applications in the first place, he added. 

It was also alleged by the ASG that age is immaterial in a case when the offence involved is so grave to the extent that it threatens national security. "Section 438 does not say that you are entitled to bail on a platter if you're 73 or 74," he argued. 

Several orders and judgments were cited as a reference to convince the Court that the applicants may not be granted anticipatory bail at this stage and that their custodial interrogation was imperative for fruitful investigation. 

Advocate C. Unnikrishnan appearing for the additional respondent Nambi Narayanan added that each and every lapse of the investigating officers arrayed as accused in the case had been laid down clearly. 

It was submitted before the Court that the case finally reached this stage solely because of the persistent legal fight of the former scientist and that it was not right to release them on bail when the investigation was underway and there were several aspects yet to be uncovered in the matter. A thread by thread analysis was to be conducted by the CBI which points to the involvement of the petitioners in the false implication and the pursuant custodial torture of Narayanan.

Two Maldivian women, Mariyam Rasheeda and Fouziyya Hassan, were also arrested and detained in the 1994 case. These women were jailed for more than three years before they were released, and have recently moved applications in the Court opposing the anticipatory bail pleas of the accused. Advocate Prasad Gandhi appeared before the Court today on behalf of them but was not heard today since the Court noted that he had not cured all the defects in the application.  

The CBI has opposed all the anticipatory bail pleas and has claimed that the false implication of Narayanan in a "concocted case" led to a delay in the development of India's cryogenic technology. Nambi Narayanan was given a clean chit by the CBI after the Kerala Police implicated him for espionage along with two Maldivian women. Thereafter, the Supreme Court had directed the CBI to conduct a detailed probe into the officials responsible for implicating him.