THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala Government last week, suspended the controversial Inspector General of Police Raman Srivastava who is accused of involvement in the espionage scandal involving the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
The suspension followed the finding of a division bench of the Kerala High Court last week that there was sufficient material to link Srivastava with the espionage case.
The Chief Secretary, R. Ramachandran Nair, said that the suspension order was issued after the government considered the observations made by the high court division bench earlier in the day while disposing of a writ appeal filed by a lawyers forum seeking a direction for the arrest of Srivastava.
The decision to suspend Srivastava was taken after the Chief Secretary got in telephonic contact with the Chief Minister, K. Karunakaran, who was away in New Delhi.
The division bench found the “unmistakable involvement” of state IG Ramon Srivastava going by the Intelligence Bureau (1B) report in Kochi. While dismissing a writ petition filed by Niyamavedi, a Kochi-based a organization of lawyers, seeking the arrest of Ramon Srivastava, the bench consisting of Justice K. Sreedharan and Justice B.N. Patnaik stated that the aspects relating to the IG’s involvement were seen to have been ignored by the CBI Director while filing his affidavit before the court.
The court directed the CBI Director to re-examine the espionage case with “more caution” and to direct his officers to precede with the investigation the proper line.” The judges, who perused the records submitted by the IB and the CBI, said the IB had reported that Ramon Srivastava had emerged in the case as the most important member of the inner group.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 27, 1995
