Thiruvananthapuram: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a charge sheet against five individuals in connection with the alleged framing of space scientist Nambi Narayanan in the 1994 ISRO espionage case, sources said on Wednesday.

Details on who has been charge-sheeted in the case, which was registered in 2021 following the Supreme Court's directions, are not immediately known.

On April 15, 2021, the apex court ordered that the report of a high-level committee on the role of erring police officials in the 1994 espionage case involving ISRO scientist Narayanan be given to the CBI.

In October 1994, Kerala police registered two cases after Maldivian national Rasheeda was arrested in Thiruvananthapuram for allegedly obtaining secret drawings of ISRO rocket engines to sell to Pakistan. Narayanan, the then director of the cryogenic project at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), was arrested along with the then ISRO deputy director D. Sasikumaran and Fousiya Hasan, a Maldivian friend of Rasheeda.

The CBI probe found the allegations to be false. In September 2018, the Supreme Court termed the police action against Narayanan as "psychopathological treatment," stating that his "liberty and dignity," basic to his human rights, were jeopardised as he was taken into custody and, despite all the glory of the past, was eventually compelled to face "cynical abhorrence."

With PTI inputs