Antrix Deal: As it prosecuted Devas, ex-ISRO officials, Govt sought ‘settlement’ | India News,The Indian Express
The biggest compensation granted to Devas has been a September 2015 ICC tribunal award of over $1.2 billion, which was confirmed by a US federal court in October 2020. Antrix Corporation has filed an appeal against this order.
Even as it pursued the prosecution of start-up firm Devas Multimedia and former ISRO officials over a failed 2005 satellite deal, the Indian government tried to reach a negotiated settlement on the same.
The lead counsel for the foreign investors in Devas Multimedia, Matthew D McGill, told The Indian Express that in February 2020, NSA Ajit Doval and former ISRO chairman A S Kiran Kumar held negotiations with Devas officials in Paris for settling all disputes arising out of India’s cancellation (in 2011) of the 2005 satellite deal between Devas and Antrix Corp (ISRO’s commercial arm).
British daily The Financial Times first wrote about these negotiations on July 13. As per its report, the talks took place even as the CBI and Enforcement Directorate were prosecuting chargesheets filed in 2016 and 2018, respectively, against Devas officials in India and the US, as well as former ISRO officials. In 2021, Antrix Corp sought liquidation of Devas Multimedia in India citing fraud in the deal.
McGill says the talks were “a means to settle the entire Devas controversy – which meant settling the claim against Antrix and pending claims against the government of India and a resolution of all of the criminal and ED proceedings initiated by the government of India”. “The fact that the government of India, in February of 2020, was willing to dismiss all of these charges that it had brought over the course of many years against Devas, and its officers, says a lot about the truth behind the charges,” the US-based counsel adds.
Signed under the UPA govt and annulled in wake of 2G scam, the Devas deal involved ISRO’s Antrix launching for it two satellites. The NDA ordered graft probes into the deal, and is fighting international arbitration councils awarding Devas relief.
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