It is a wise and necessary practical step on the part of the government on Thursday to scrap the 2005 agreement between Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), and Devas Multimedia Pvt. Ltd, the Bengaluru-based firm which appears to have strong American and German interests and on whose board sit former senior officials of Isro. The contract, whose money value is placed at about `2 lakh crore rupees, appeared prima facie dubious as it was arrived at without a process of competitive bidding. Had it gone through, it would have been the scam to beat all scams, tainting the Prime Minister, above all. At his interaction with editors of television news channels on Wednesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had taken pains to note that the contract “was not operational in any practical sense”, indicating that no payments had been made to the private party in this highly unconscionable arrangement. At least this point would not be controverted, and that is fortunate. Otherwise the government would be faced with the accusation of corruption in the Department of Space which comes under the direct administrative charge of the PM. At the televised media conference the PM had strongly hinted that the controversy-begging agreement would be ended by the government when he said there was no question of diluting in any way the recommendations of the Space Commission which last July called for terminating the contract.
As it happens, the government has moved in double-quick time with the Cabinet Committee on Security convening on Thursday to end the agreement. Announcing the termination, law minister Veerappa Moily said the government had taken a “sovereign” decision to end the deal. It is not fortuitous that the decision was reached at a meeting of the CCS. Elaborating the security dimension of the case, Mr Moily recalled that the rare S-band spectrum, to which Devas would have been given access if the deal was actuated, was for the use of our defence systems, the paramilitary, and entities such as the railways. He noted that such a commodity had to be outside the view of commercial transaction.
The question would be asked why this was not appreciated by those concerned in good time, and how any contract, leave alone one with such extraordinarily high financial values attaching to it, could pass muster when competitive bids were not called even if the PM himself did not come into the picture. To seek answers to these leading questions, it is not enough to annul the agreement with Devas. It is no less necessary to probe how this curious deal could be even thought of in the highly sensitive area of space, who were involved, and what was driving the process that appears suspicious even to a lay person. It appears the process was germinated back in 2003. It is poor advertisement for our governance methods that questions began to be asked only about the middle of 2009, and the decision to end the funny business dragged out another year and a half. These issues are bound to be raised in Parliament and the government needs to make a quick internal inquiry and vet its systems and processes before that. It bears mentioning that Isro is an entity that was under sanctions by the Americans at the time the deal was struck. It is surprising then that commercial US interests should be on its bandwagon. In short, the whole affair is regrettable in the extreme and calls for investigation by an impartial authority. Only that would retrieve Isro’s fair name. Devas has threatened it would take recourse to legal processes to protect its interests. So be it. Mr Moily asserts that the government’s decision is legally sound. When “sovereign” interests are invoked, the government is likely to get an extra layer of legal protection.