BJP asks why no action against PMO officials in Antrix deal

NEW DELHI: Even as the government acted against former ISRO chief and three others in Antrix-Devas deal, BJP on Wednesday sought to turn the tables on PMO, demanding an explanation from the Prime Minister as to why no action has been taken against officials in his office responsible for the controversial agreement.

The party said taking action only against some officials and blacklisting them would not serve the purpose.

"The deal was cancelled due to an alert opposition and the media. Now holding some officials guilty for it and blacklisting them will serve very limited purpose. What about the PMO. Prithviraj Chavan used to chair all the meetings of the Space Commission..." party spokesperson Prakash Javadekar told reporters here.

He said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh must explain why "no action has been taken against people responsible in his office. After all he is the Cabinet minister in charge of Department of Space," he said.

Taking action in the controversial deal, government has barred former ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair and three other eminent space scientists from holding any government offices.

A private company was allotted scarce S band spectrum by ISRO allegedly in violation of rules in the controversial deal.

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

The contract with Devas was signed during the tenure of Nair as the Chairman of ISRO.