Rocketry The Nambi Effect – Burning Issues

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Who is Nambi Narayanan?

Nambi Narayanan is a former scientist of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
While working at ISRO, Narayanan was accused of selling vital secrets associated with Indian space technology to Pakistan.
He waged a legal battle against the Kerala police officers who accused him of being a Pakistan`s spy in 1994.
Narayanan, in an excerpt of his autobiography Ormakalude Bhramanapatham’ (Orbit of memories) published on IEMalayalam.com, penned down his difficult times when he was falsely implicated in the spy case.
In an snippet from his book, he paints the spy case as a conspiracy against him and the ISRO through the collective efforts of agents of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in connivance with Indian police and intelligence officers.
The case was produced out of thin air in order to stall India’s rapid advancements in the development of an indigenous cryogenic rocket engine, he said in the book.

Working as the in-charge of the cryogenics division at ISRO, Narayanan foresaw the need for liquid fuelled engines for ISRO’s future civilian space programmes and introduced the technology in India as early as the 1970s.
The same technology which later he was accused of selling.

In 1992, ISRO finalised a deal with Russia for transfer of technology to develop cryogenic-based fuels.
However, due to pressure from US the deal was called off.
Nonetheless, a new agreement with Russia was signed to fabricate four cryogenic engines without a formal transfer of technology.
Tenders were floated and a consensus had already been reached with Kerala Hitech Industries Limited (Keltch) which would have provided the cheapest tender for fabricating engines.
But, at the peak of his career, the scientist got stuck in the ‘ISRO spy case’.

In October 1994, Kerala police in Thiruvananthapuram had registered a case against Mariam Rasheeda,
A Maldivian national, under Section 14 of the Foreigners Act 1946 and Section 7 of the Foreigners Order, 1948.
The initial charges against her were of overstaying in India following the cancellation of her flight to Maldives.
Following her interrogation, the police made out a case that she had contacted ISRO space scientists who were suspected of having transferred cryogenic engine technology to Pakistan through her.
And the following month, the police arrested Narayanan and another ISRO scientist, D. Sasikumaran.
The police case was that Narayanan and Sasikumaran had passed on secret documents to other countries, especially Pakistan.
The arrested scientists were grilled by Intelligence Bureau sleuths.
Within 20 days of the case being registered, the probe was handed over to the CBI.
In 1996, it submitted its closure report in the chief judicial magistrate’s court in Kochi, saying that the allegations of espionage were unproven and false.
The court admitted the closure report, leading to the discharge of all those who had been implicated.
In 1996, CPI (M) led government tried to reinvestigate the case, which was later quashed by the Supreme court on the scientists’ appeal.

The case cost the 79-year-old former ISRO scientist his career and over two decades of his life and academic work.
But Mr. Narayanan had fought on to bring his accusers to justice.
The Supreme Court, in its 2018 judgment, had called the treatment meted out to the scientist while he was in custody as “psycho-pathological”.
Though it had ordered the Kerala government to pay Mr. Narayanan ₹50 lakh as compensation,
The court said mere money was not enough to make up for the torture the scientist had endured for 24 years.
An inquiry was called for into the circumstances behind the “frame-up”.