Hyderabad, January 31
The daggers are out in the Indian space establishment. The internal war over the controversial ISRO-Devas deal is all set to intensify. The probe reports on the botched deal, meant to allocate the scarce S-band Spectrum to the Bangalore-based Devas Multimedia Private Limited, are expected to be made public soon, a development that may well expose the chinks in the space department.

A crisp one-paragraph statement issued by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in Bangalore today said that it was in the process of getting clearances for release of reports of the two high-power committees that had examined the 2005 deal.

Based on the reports of these two panels, the Centre had in February last year annulled the deal and took an unprecedented disciplinary action recently against former ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair and three other scientists, barring them from holding any government posts.

“We are in the process of getting necessary clearances for releasing the reports of the two committees - the High Powered Review Committee set up on February 10, 2011 (with BK Chaturvedi and Prof Roddam Narasimha as members) and the High Level Team formed on May 31, 2011 (chaired by Pratyush Sinha),” ISRO Chairman and Secretary of Department of Space Dr K Radhakrishnan said, breaking his silence over the raging controversy.

Apart from the doubts over the way the “sweetheart” deal was struck and whether the Prime Minister’s Office was kept in the loop, the jinxed Spectrum agreement brought to the fore the tussle between Nair and Radhakrishna.

The ban on Nair, the brain behind the country’s Moon Mission, and his colleagues stunned the scientific community. An angry Nair had accused his predecessor of being responsible for the punitive action because of a "personal agenda". The space scientist, who received support from several eminent scientists, had even dashed off a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, pleading for stalling the punitive order and making public the reports of the two committees that examined various aspects of the deal.

The ISRO’s latest announcement, promising to release the probe reports, is seen in the scientific community as a move to nail Nair and his close associates. However, Nair welcomed the decision and said that he had, all along, wanted the government to make the twin reports public.

The high-powered committee, comprising BK Chaturvedi and Roddam Narasimha, was set up to review the technical, commercial, procedural and financial aspects of the agreement.