No, in fact Antrix and the Government of India repeatedly misled Devas about the state of the Agreement before they unlawfully terminated the Agreement in February 2011. International arbitration tribunals concluded that neither Antrix nor the Government of India ever gave any indication to Devas that the Agreement might be in jeopardy because of “military needs”(1) and intentionally deceived Devas for months by behaving as if the Agreement was alive and on track when Antrix was actively trying to illegally terminate the Agreement behind the scenes.(2)
Many others were misled, including foreign governments. Those who were misled included German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelles, who had expressed his concerns to both the Prime Minister of India and the External Affairs Minister; delegations from the U.S. State Department in late 2010; former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright and former U.S. National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, who were advising Devas; and the Chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Thomas Donahue, Sr.(3) All had raised their concerns to the Government of India about the status of the Devas Agreement and in every occasion, Indian officials expressed support for it and never provided any indication that the Government was working actively to unlawfully terminate the agreement.
- UNCITRAL Award on Jurisdiction and Merits to Mauritian shareholders of Devas, Paragraph 323.
- UNICITRAL Interim Award to Deutsche Telekom, Paragraphs 375-376, 387.
- Witness Statement by Ramachandran Viswanathan to the UNCITRAL tribunal (The Hague). June 29, 2013.