Ban on ISRO ex-scientists won't be revoked, says PMO

The Prime Minister's Office on Sunday made it clear that there would be no revoking of the recent bar on previous Indian Space Research Organisation chairman G Madhavan Nair three of his former colleagues from holding any position in a government-controlled organisation in future.

Minister of state in the PMO Narayanaswamy told the media, ''There is no question of revoking the ban as it is clearly mentioned in the probe reports as to why the ban was imposed on them.'' he said.

The others banned along with Nair were former scientific secretary A Bhaskarnarayana; K N Shankara, former director, ISRO Satellite Centre; and K R Sridharamurthi, former director, Antrix Corp.

The reports of two committees set up by the government to probe the Antrix-Devas deal – a review committee comprising former Planning Commissioner B K Chaturvedi and scientist Roddam Narasimha and a later panel team chaired by former Chief Vigilance Commissioner Pratyush Sinha - were released late on Saturday.

The move followed Nair's furious claims through last week that he and his colleagues had been victimised and the chief motivator of the ban on them was K Radhakrishnan, his successor as chief of the space agency.

Subsequently on Sunday, Nair said he was not given a fair hearing by the second committee, although the findings of the first one were ''fair''. But Narayanasamy rebutted this, accusing Nair of ''misleading the nation'' by saying that he was not given a chance to explain his case.