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Justice K. Haripal of the Kerala High Court has granted interim protection to former Gujarat DGP R B Sreekumar from arrest in a case being probed by CBI into an alleged conspiracy to implicate former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan in the 1994 espionage case.
Sreekumar has been booked under sections 120B (punishment for criminal conspiracy), 167 (Public servant framing an incorrect document with intent to cause injury), 218 (Public servant framing incorrect record or writing with intent to save person from punishment or property from forfeiture), 330 (Voluntarily causing hurt to extort confession), 323 (Punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 348 (Wrongful confinement to extort confession), 477A (falsification of accounts) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.
Justice Haripal ordered that Sreekumar shall not be arrested till August 2, and also tagged his plea with two other anticipatory bail applications pertaining to the same case, filed by two former Kerala Police officers and a former IB official, which had been posted for hearing on August 2 before Justice Ashok Menon.
The Gujarat High Court, on two occasions, had ordered the CBI to not arrest the 75 year old former Director General of Police till July 29 until he had obtained anticipatory bail from the Kerala court.
Background
This espionage case, goes back to 1994, wherein allegations of transfer of certain confidential documents on India’s space programme to foreign countries by two scientists and four others, including two Maldivian women, surfaced in the media.
Nambi Narayanan, the then director of the cryogenic project at ISRO, was arrested along with the then ISRO Deputy Director D Sasikumaran by the Kerala Police. The former scientist, who was eventually given a clean chit by the CBI, had alleged that the Kerala police had “fabricated” the case and falsely accused him.
Nambi Naryanan reportedly accused the former DGP, Gujarat, of torturing him and falsifying records to implicate him. The CBI had named him in its FIR and charged Sreekumar, along with several other officials under the abovementioned IPC sections.
According to some media sources, the Additional Solicitor General (ASG) S.V. Raju, appearing for the CBI, argued before the Kerala High Court yesterday that the case was a serious matter involving national security and that Sreekumar must not be granted anticipatory bail. He contended that CBI strongly believed that Pakistan was involved in the case and that it was done to derail ISRO’s programme to develop a cryogenic engine. ASG Raju stated that the scientists were arrested, humiliated and tortured.
He also referred to the Supreme Court-appointed committee which found that Sreekumar was allegedly responsible for cooking up false charges against the former ISRO scientists. But on July 26, the Supreme Court Bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and Sanjiv Khanna have made it clear that the Central Bureau of Investigation should collect materials independently to proceed against the accused persons and cannot rely only on the Justice DK Jain committee report.
Furthermore, before the Kerala High Court, the advocate appearing for S. Sreekumar submitted that he was not even present when Nambi Narayan was interrogated. He submitted that Narayan had already become an accused in the espionage case before Sreekumar became privy to the matter.
The lawyer further apprised the court that the investigation was handled by a special investigation team and that Sreekumar was not part of the SIT and only assisted them on the request of the Kerala Police.
It is noteworthy that R.B Sreekumar, a 1971 batch IPS officer remains one of the key whistle-blowers blowing the lid of high-level state complicity behind the Gujarat carnage of 2002. He was at various times, Assistant Superintendent of Police, Deputy Inspector General, Deputy Director General DIG (Central Investigation Bureau), Joint Director (IG), and Additional Director General of Police. In 1999, he was even awarded the President’s medal for meritorious service.
(To be updated with Kerala High Court order)
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