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Journalism of Courage
The Pratyush Sinha-chaired High Level Team (HLT) has not only indicted former ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair and three other space scientists,but has also recommended investigation into the functioning and operations of Devas since its inception.
According to conclusions and recommendations of the five-member HLT,Devas was established by Forge Advisors-USA (FA-USA) in December 2004 (a month before it signed the deal with Antrix) with a share capital of Rs 1 lakh and two shareholders Venugopal D,a former ISRO scientist,(holding 9,000 shares) and Umesh M (holding 1,000 shares),(which indicates a face value of Rs 10 per share).
The agreement was signed in January 2005 and by December 31 that year,the ordinary share capital had increased to over Rs 5 lakh with 12 shareholders,including three members of the FA-USA team involved in presentations to ISRO,who held 60 per cent of the ordinary share capital,and two Mauritius-based entities Columbia Capital Devas (Mauritius) Ltd and Telecom Devas (Mauritius) Ltd who held one ordinary share and 50 per cent of the preference shares each.
As on March 31,2010,Devas had 17 shareholders with Deutsche Telecom (20%),the two Mauritius-based entities (17% each) and Dr M G Chandrasekhar,another ex-ISRO scientist (19%) being the largest ones together holding over 73 per cent of the ordinary share capital,the HLT said.
