From spying charge to Padma Bhushan: Nambi Narayanan says he is elated

Thiruvananthapuram: Dubbed as a spy, ignored by his colleagues and humiliated by those who knew him, veteran former ISRO scientist S. Nambi Narayanan who was falsely implicated in an espionage case and had to suffer jail term and ignominy, said on Friday that he is extremely happy after hearing the news that he has been awarded the Padma Bhushan.

Speaking briefly to the media at his house here, Narayanan's face beamed with joy.

" It's true that I have been awarded Padma Bhushan. Now I am getting recognition from all sides, first the Supreme Court cleared me, then the Kerala government came up to me and now the Centre has also accepted me," said Narayanan who spent 50 days in jail in the infamous ISRO spy case.

Last year the Supreme Court awarded Rs 50 lakh compensation for his travails and directed setting up of a committee to inquire into the role of erring officials who Nambi Narayanan said had implicated him in the ISRO Aspy case.

The erring' state government officials include then IG of Police Siby Mathews, and then deputy superintend of police K.K. Joshua and S. Vijayan.

The ISRO spy case surfaced in 1994 when Nambi Narayanan along with another top official of ISRO, two Maldivian women and a businessman was arrested on espionage charges, but the CBI cleared him in 1995 and since then he has been fighting a legal battle against Siby Mathews, the then IG of Police who had probed the case and two other police officers.

Nambi Narayan had approached the apex court after a Kerala high court bench, dismissed a single bench order that directed the Kerala government to take action against three retired police officers, who had implicated and arrested him.