Stigma removed with SC judgment, says Nambi Narayanan

“I had a necessity to prove my innocence and the 24-year-long legal battle to come out of the stigma of being labelled as a spy is over’, he said at a meet the press on Wednesday.

Narayanan said he suspected that vested interests were behind the 1994 case to deliberately delay India’s cryogenic engine technology by at least 15 years. He also said the technology he was accused to have stolen and sold in the 1994 case did not even exist at that time.

Narayanan expressed hope that the Supreme Court-appointed three-member panel to take appropriate steps against the erring officials would ascertain why and who had fabricated the case against the ISRO former scientist.

On the compensation awarded by the apex court, Narayanan said it need not be clubbed with the Rs 1 crore civil liability suit he filed against the Kerala government and police officers responsible for his arrest. Referring to the role of the media during the spy scandal in 1994, Narayanan said they were misguided and misled by certain investigating officers.

The Supreme Court, while ordering a probe into the role of Kerala police last week, awarded Rs 50 lakh compensation to 76-year-old Narayanan for being subjected to mental cruelty and asked the State government to pay it to him within eight weeks.