Antrix Devas Deal News Today

The alleged scams such as non-transparent auction of public resources (coal and telecom spectrum), the spectre of retrospective taxation, unsustainable demand stimulus and ill-targeted subsidies and reckless lending by the banking sector, found a special mention

The district court, in an October 25 order, rejected the government's plea to consider the Supreme Court order as fresh evidence of wrongdoing by Devas Multimedia in the process of securing the 2005 satellite deal with Antrix Corp.

A division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad dismissed the appeal filed by Devas Employees Mauritius Private Limited against the single-judge order.

Devas shareholders are pursuing Indian assets abroad to recover the awards and have got a French court order for freezing Indian properties in Paris and got partial rights over funds maintained by India funds in Canada.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today said the Supreme Court's order on the 2005 Antrix-Devas deal was "proof of the Congress's misuse of power".

A private company in 2005 came up with an offer to start a bouquet of multimedia and telecom services and got into an agreement with Antrix Corporation, the commercial wing of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and made a deal of leasing out two of ISRO's satellites, GSLV-6 & GSLA-6A, for private services at a throw-away price.

The deal was cancelled in 2011 on the ground that the auction of the broadband spectrum was mired in fraud and that the government needed the S-band satellite spectrum for national security and other social purposes.

Union Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday that the 2005 deal between ISRO's commercial arm Antrix and privately-owned Devas Multimedia was a "fraud of the Congress, by the Congress and for the Congress".

The Indian government will use the Supreme Court order upholding liquidation of Devas Multimedia Pvt. to fight the enforcement of arbitration awards being sought by the company in courts across the world.

A private company in 2005 came up with an offer to start a bouquet of multimedia and telecom services and got into an agreement with Antrix Corporation, the commercial wing of state space agency, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and made a deal of leasing out two of ISRO's satellites, GSLV-6 & GSLA-6A, for private services at a throw-away price.