Narayanan breaks a coconut at a temple on Wednesday

Thiruvananthapuram, Sept. 24: The mission to Mars is on track but for this former Isro scientist, it’s still an orbit too far.

S. Nambi Narayanan, who was falsely branded a spy in the 1994 Isro espionage case, is still waiting for justice — not legal clearance, which he has already got, but punishment for those behind the controversy that he claims delayed space projects by years.

Narayanan, who has always said there was an international angle to the conspiracy behind the scandal, today recalled his conversation with Narendra Modi in September last year. “All I can say is that time won’t be like this always, Nambi Saab,” he said, recalling Modi’s words.

“I told him that both the Left and the Congress governments in Kerala were bent on saving those who wronged me. I wanted him to become PM so that the Centre could do something to get the investigation into the conspiracy going,” Narayanan said. A year on, he is still waiting.

Narayanan had been accused of leaking cryogenic engine technology, though India was then only in the process of acquiring the technology from Russia. “The local police never searched my office or home before or after arresting me on November 30, 1994. I suspect this was because if they had searched, they would have found nothing. But taking me into custody was the advice from their foreign masters,” he said.

He spent 50 days in jail before the CBI, which took over the case from the local police, said he had been falsely implicated. The Supreme Court acquitted Narayanan in 1998.

Had the spy controversy not happened, could India have achieved what it did today much earlier?

“I will not say this or that project, but the scandal delayed Isro projects by 10 to 15 years,” Narayanan said. “That was the aim. But those who did such damage to India and me personally are still sitting safe.”

A Kerala police officer who had investigated the case is now the state’s chief information commissioner. Narayanan had also lodged complaints against the then IB deputy director, R.B. Sreekumar, who later went on retire as a DGP from Gujarat, accusing him of torturing him in custody. Sreekumar had invited the BJP’s wrath by criticising Modi over the 2002 riots.

Earlier in the day, as Isro scientists readied to slow down the spacecraft to allow smooth orbit insertion, Narayanan broke a coconut at a city temple. His son-in-law S. Arunan is the project director for the Mars Orbiter Mission.