ISRO Conspiracy case: Kerala High Court grants anticipatory bail to five accused ex-police/IB officers

The Kerala High Court on Friday granted anticipatory bail to former police/ Intelligence Bureau officers RB Sreekumar, PS Jayaprakash, Thampi S Durga Dutt, Vijayan, and VK Maini, who are accused of conspiring to frame former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientist Nambi Narayanan in an espionage case in 1994 [PS Jayaprakash v Central Bureau of Investigation]..Justice K Babu found that the Investigating Agency in this case, the Central Bureau of Investigation, was unable to place on record any material to prima facie establish the offences alleged."In the present case, the CBI could not place any concrete materials on record which prima facie make the accusations against the petitioners/accused well founded. The `mens rea’ of the petitioners in the commission of the alleged offences is doubtful. There is no possibility of the petitioners fleeing from justice. The apprehension of tampering of the witnesses has no basis. The prosecution failed to establish that prejudice would be caused to free, fair, and full investigation in the event of granting anticipatory bail to the petitioners", the Court said in its order.The Court also imposed certain conditions and directed the petitioners to co-operate with the investigation."Petititoners shall appear before the Investigating Officer on 27/1/23 between 10:00 and 11:00 am for interrogation. In the event of their arrest, they shall be released on bail on their executing bond for ₹1 lakh each and two solvent sureties of the like sum. They shall continue to appear before the Investigating Officer on Mondays and Fridays for a further period of two weeks. Petitioners shall not leave India without the permission of the jurisdictional court. They shall continue to report before the Investigating Officer as and when required, " the order stated..This is the second time that the anticipatory bail pleas of Sreekumar, Dutt, Vijayan and Jayaprakash are coming up for hearing before the Kerala High Court.Even though the High Court had granted them anticipatory bail in August 2021, the Supreme Court had set aside that order in December last year and sent the pleas back to the High Court to decide the matter afresh.The top court said that it appeared that the High Court had not considered the individual role played by each accused and the nature of the allegations.Further, the apex court had said that the delay in filing the criminal complaint should not have been a factor since the same was belatedly done only after the top court had ordered so in 2021.However, it granted the four accused protection from arrest for a period of 5 weeks..Subsequently, the four accused approached the High Court once again seeking anticipatory bail. However, this time, another person who is accused in the case, former Intelligence Bureau officer, one VK Maini, also approached the High Court seeking anticipatory bail. His plea was tagged along with those of Sreekumar, Dutt, Vijayan and Jayaprakash.Over the course of several hearings, the counsel for all the accused persons denied their direct role in the case.They stated that they absent during the interrogation of Narayanan, since they were low level officers with no direct connection to the case the having no acquaintance with Narayanan. Advocate C Unnikrishnan, appearing for Narayanan pushed for custodial interrogation of all the accused persons stating that there is a serious conspiracy between the accused persons. Additional Solicitor General of India SV Raju, appearing for the Central Bureau of Investigation, informed the court that the 1994 espionage case was fabricated and the arrest of Narayanan was illegal.After extensively hearing the arguments of all the counsel for three days, the Court had reserved its verdict last week. .[Read Order]