The issue ran into more complications after the Forest Department shot off a notice asking ISRO to get out of the deal, and the organisation countered that it would take legal steps if the notice was not withdrawn, maintaining it was convinced that there could be no legal hindrance to setting up the project there. The seller, Xavi Mano Mathew, too, claimed his land really could not be put under the ecologically fragile lands category, and demanded that it be denotified.

The Opposition was quick to allege that the Forest Minister was involved in helping Mathew palm off ecologically fragile land to ISRO, while the minister insisted otherwise. The Government, meanwhile, has offered the ISRO 200 acres of land elsewhere free of cost to shift the IIST project. Revenue officials reported there was no such Government land to spare for the project. Embarrassed, the Government has instituted a probe by the Principal Secretary (Revenue) into how the officials came to that conclusion.