Chennai:  The controversy over the S-Band deal has come back to haunt the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The government has initiated punitive action against former ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair and three other scientists over the contentious Antrix-Devas deal struck in 2005 that granted lease of the precious S-band spectrum at throwaway prices. The agreement was annulled by the government last year.

Terming the action that bars them from government jobs as "unjustified", Mr Nair told NDTV that, "The government has been misinformed and misled." He also said that he will challenge the order in court once he is officially served a notice.

Antrix Corporation, ISRO's commercial arm, had signed a contract with Devas Multimedia in January 2005 for lease of 90 per cent transponders in two satellites to be built by ISRO. Mr Nair was the chairman of ISRO at the time.

Bundled into the deal was 70 MHz of S-Band spectrum which was priced at Rs. 1000 crore.
      
A media expose claimed that the deal could have caused loss of over Rs. 2 lakh crore to the national exchequer.

Besides Mr Nair, K Bhaskaranarayana, former scientific secretary at ISRO, K R Sridharamurthi, former managing director of Antrix and K N Shankara, former director of the ISRO satellite centre have been penalised by the Department of Space, an ISRO official said.

The government action comes after considering a report of the high-powered committee (HPC) that looked into the Devas deal and that of another panel which examined the HPC report.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had on May 31, last year constituted a five-member high-level team under the chairmanship of former Central Vigilance Commissioner Pratyush Sinha to examine aspects of the agreement between Antrix and Devas.

Mr Nair contends that he was not given a hearing by the committee that was to decide on action against officials of Antrix.