The January 13 order was a fallout of the controversial Antrix-Devas deal.
Under the contract, signed in 2005 during Dr. Nair's tenure as ISRO Chairman, Antrix Corporation had allowed the Bangalore-based private company Devas Multimedia unbridled use of 70 MHz of the scarce S-band spectrum over a 20-year period for its digital multimedia services. The ISRO was to build two satellites GSat 6 and 6A for Devas.
In February 2011, the Centre scrapped the deal, days after media published an investigation into the inherent irregularities in the agreement.
The contract was signed without a competitive bidding process, raising questions about the preferential spectrum allocation, which according to the Comptroller and Auditor-General's estimates could have cost the exchequer a loss of over Rs.2 lakh crore.
In May last, the Prime Minister formed a five-member high-level team under the chairmanship of the former Central Vigilance Commissioner, Pratyush Sinha, to examine aspects of the agreement between Antrix and Devas. Two other high-level probes into the agreement were initiated early last year by the Prime Minister's Office.
Dr. Nair will lose visiting professorship at ISRO. He also holds posts as Chairman of the Board of Governors in IIT-Patna, and Chairman of the Governing council of CSIR's NAL.
