PM sets up panel to look into Antrix deal

Sources said the inquiry by this committee would look into individual culpability and fix responsibility,if any. The government was forced to annul the deal in February this year after the CAG questioned it and alleged it had resulted in losses worth crores.

The committee headed by Sinha is yet to hold its first meeting but it is expected to take its cue from another classified report on the subject that was prepared in April by a two- member committee including former cabinet secretary B K Chaturvedi and Prof Roddam Narasimha. The panel,whose mandate had been to look only into technical,commercial,procedural and financial aspects of the 2005 deal,had identified procedural lapses as the key reason for the Antrix-Devas agreement favouring Devas Multimedia,a private Indian company partly owned by US-based Forge Advisors.

It had recommended corrective measures including restructuring the administrative power structure of ISRO and the department of space to ensure accountability at different levels.

The report,according to sources,had underlined that the Union Cabinet and the space commission had never been taken into confidence over the agreement. Cabinet approvals were sought by ISRO in December 2005 and October 2009 for building two satellites (GSAT-6 and GSAT-6A) at a cost of Rs 269 crore and Rs 147 crore respectively,but the Cabinet proposal never mentioned that 90 percent of the satellites were to be exclusively used by Devas Multimedia as per the agreement with Antrix.

Under the deal,Antrix was to provide 70 megahertz of scarce S Band spectrum to Devas for its digital multimedia services. In return,Devas had to only pay $300 million over 12 years.