Kerala state cabinet today gave in-principle approval to give Rs 1.

3 crore
compensation to former ISRO scientist S Nambi Narayanan, to settle a case he had
filed in Thiruvananthapuram Sub Court against his unlawful arrest.

In 1994, Narayanan was accused and charged with leaking vital defence secrets to
two alleged Maldivian intelligence officers.

arayanan alleged that he was not only tortured during his 50-day custody but was
also forced to give false statements and had to spend around two months in jail
before the CBI after its probe into the infamous ISRO espionage case concluded the
allegations against him were false.

The Supreme Court in its ruling had said that the former ISRO scientist was
�arrested unnecessarily, harassed and subjected to mental cruelty� and cleared
Narayanan of all charges.

He was conferred with Padma Bhushan this year saying that award gave him a feeling
that his contribution had finally been recognised.

rime Minister Narendra Modi in his address in Kerala�s Thrissur in January this
year had slammed the UDF leaders for settling their political scores and damaging
the reputation of a scientist for their own politics.

�For their own politics, they damaged national interest and troubled a scientist.
It is an honour that our government had the opportunity of conferring the Padma
award on Nambi Narayanan,� PM Modi had said.

Earlier, the Kerala Police had given Rs 50 lakh compensation to Narayanan for being
�unnecessarily arrested and harassed�.

At the time of his arrest, Narayanan was working as a senior official at ISRO and
was in charge of the cryogenics division. It was Narayanan who introduced the
liquid fuel rocket technology in India in the early 70s when India was still
working on solid motors and instrumental in developing Vikas Engine which was used
for the first PSLV launch by India.