Nambi Narayanan Biography 
S. Nambi Narayanan is an Indian scientist from Kerala, who was formerly associated with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). He was in-charge of the cryogenics division in the early 1990s. This ISRO scientist was he was falsely charged for a spy scandal and got arrested in 1994. Though Supreme Court declared him not guilty in 1998, it took 25 long years to get him the compensation for the falsely accused case. In September 2018, the Supreme Court through the bench of Dipak Misra awarded a compensation of 50 lakhs to Nambi Narayan. The amount is to be recovered from state government within 8 weeks’ time. He retired from government service in 2001.
Nambi hails from Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu. He was born in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Narayanan foresaw the need of liquid fuel rocket technology in India and introduced it in the early 1970s. For these efforts he received encouragement from then ISRO chairman Satish Dhawan, and his successor U.R. Rao. He was a contemporary of A. P. J. Abdul Kalam during the same period. Narayanan developed liquid propellant motors in the 1970s and moved to advanced and bigger engines later.
In 1994, Narayanan was produced before the magistrate court in Thiruvananthapuram by a Special Investigation Team of the Kerala police. He was accused of trading India’s space secrets to foreign agents for money and other enticements. He was falsely charged with leaking vital Defence secrets to two alleged Maldivian intelligence officers, Mariam Rasheeda and Fauzia Hassan. He was arrested and he had to spend 50 days in jail. He was also tortured inside the jail till he collapsed. ISRO chairman at this point of time also didn’t interfere in the legal matters.
Published: September 24, 2018
Updated: September 24, 2018
