G Madhavan Nair: Awarded Padma Vibhushan in 2009, Chargesheeted for Cheating in 2016

New Delhi: G Madhavan Nair, a noted rocket scientist, always stood on high moral grounds in the public. The nation chose to honour him with the second highest national civilian honour Padma Vibhushan in 2009.

He stood ground even after skeletons came tumbling out of his cupboard in the Antrix- Devas Space Deal scam. The nation was given a vague picture of his misdeeds and corruption when the Indian Government blacklisted him.

On August 11, 2016 India’s crime investigation agency CBI filed a chargesheet against G Madhavan Nair, former Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation and Antrix Corporation for corruption and cheating in the Devas-Antrix deal.

One of the charges is causing a “wrongful gain” of Rs 578 crore to private multimedia company Devas by the space agency’s commercial arm Antrix.
Madhavan Nair and seven others have been accused of entering into a criminal conspiracy to “cause undue gain to themselves or others” by abusing their official positions. They caused a loss to Antrix Corporation Ltd and Isro by leasing out Insat transponders capacity on GSAT-6 and 6A satellites to Bengaluru-based Devas.
The Antrix- Devas deal is the biggest financial scandal ever to hit the scientific establishment in India.

Interestingly, Madhavan Nair moved closer to the Pro-BJP community leader Vellappally Natesan after BJP came to power at the centre and he was announced as the leading person of Vellappally’s power rally prior to the elections. Nair had told the media he would cooperate with Vellappally Natesan’s Kerala yatra in 2015. However, Nair did not turn up for the programme, citing personal reasons.