Thiruvananthapuram, Oct. 23 (PTI): The family of the late Congress leader K. Karunakaran have decided to press for action against the police officers whose faulty investigation of a spying scandal at India’s space body had led to the removal of Karunakaran from the Kerala chief minister’s post in the mid-1990s.

Karunakaran’s son K. Muraleedharan and daughter Padmaja Venugopal said their hopes of getting the Congress leader’s name cleared are based on the October 20 order of the Kerala High Court quashing the government’s decision not to take action against the three police officers, who have since retired.

Muraleedharan, a Congress MLA, and daughter Venugopal, also active in the party, have demanded action by the Oommen Chandy government based on the high court order.

They hold that a section of leaders within Congress had used the spy case at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to oust Karunakaran from the chief ministership in the mid-1990s.

They maintain that the decision of the Chandy government to spare the three officials, one of them a former Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) and currently Chief Information Commissioner amounted to denial of justice to Karunakaran.

”Of course, we will raise the issue within the party and with the government. We expect that there would be action based on the high court order. We will also take up the matter within the party,” said Muraleedharan, a former president of the Kerala Congress unit.

On October 20, while allowing the petition filed by former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan, the high court had sent the matter back to the government for reconsideration and the issuing of formal orders within three months.

The order said that the Kerala government, which was 'enthusiastic' in withdrawing the case from the Central Bureau of Investigation and handing it over to state police, had not taken a serious note of the lapses in the probe by the Kerala police.

Narayanan had approached the court in December 2012 seeking initiation of criminal and disciplinary action against former ADGP Siby Mathews and retired Superintendents of Police K.K. Joshua and S. Vijayan, who were held responsible by the Central Bureau of Investigation for the illegal arrest of the senior ISRO scientist and accusing him of being involved in the espionage case. The scientist was later discharged.

Meanwhile, the government is learnt to be examining the legal issues involved.

According to government sources, although no follow-up action has so far been finalised in the matter, legal experts would be consulted on how to proceed in the case since the three police officers involved are no longer in service.

Reacting to the development, the chief minister on Thursday said that the government would take necessary action after studying the verdict.

”We will examine the high court order and take a proper decision,” Chandy told reporters after a Cabinet meeting.

He rejected allegations that the government was deliberately delaying action against the retired police officers and said that the decision in any matter is taken based only on merit.

Asked whether there was any impropriety in Siby Mathews continuing as Kerala's Chief Information Commissioner, Chandy said that the question “has to be put to persons who made him the Commissioner”.

Mathews was appointed as the CIC by the previous government, of the Left Democratic Front.

Chandy said that his United Democratic Front government has always respected the judiciary, irrespective of whether its orders were favourable to it or not.