The accused officials "thus caused wrongful gain of Rs 578

crore" to the private firm and its owners, CBI has alleged.

The agency has said a deal between Antrix and Devas was fixed in principle in January 2005 for lease of S-Band transponders.

However, the then Executive Director of Antrix signed it on six months later only after ensuring that Chandrashekhar and Vishwanathan became majority stakeholders in Devas. They continued in that position till 2009.

The change in the board, where a US company represented by Chandrashekhar and Vishwanathan had majority stakes, was never verified by Antrix as the agreement had been in violation of Shankara Committee recommendations which said execution of any such agreement should be entered into with an Indian company alone, it was contended.

Money had been transferred to the US company from the accounts of a Bangalore-based private company, CBI has alleged.

The FIR in the case was filed on March 16, 2015.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)