Former ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair and three other eminent space scientists have been barred from holding any government jobs by the government for their role in the controversial Antrix-Devas deal.

The action came after considering a report of the High-Powered Committee (HPC) that went into the Devas deal and that of another panel which examined the report. Mr. Nair has blamed his successor and the current ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan for the action.

The government action is an apparent fallout of the Antrix deal in which a private company was allotted scarce S band spectrum by ISRO allegedly in violation of rules. Besides Nair,K Bhaskaranarayana, former Scientific Secretary at ISRO, K R Sridharamurthi, former managing director of Antrix, commercial arm of ISRO, and K N Shankara, former director of the ISRO satellite centre, have been penalised by the Department of Space.

The contract with Devas was signed during the tenure of Nair as Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation. Nair was also the architect of India's maiden moon mission Chandrayan I.

The Prime Minister had on May 31, last year constituted a five-member high-level team under the chairmanship of former Central Vigilance Commissioner Pratyush Sinha to examine various aspects of the agreement between Antrix and Devas.