Nambi Narayanan was born on 12 December 1941 in Nagercoil, in the erstwhile Princely state of Travancore (present-day Kanyakumari District).

[13] After studying mechanical engineering in Madurai, Narayanan started his career in 1966 at ISRO as a technical assistant at the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station.

He returned to India with expertise in liquid propulsion at a time when Indian rocketry was still solely dependent on solid propellants.

[4] On 30 November 1994, Narayanan was arrested as part of an investigation of alleged espionage, by a team of Kerala Police and Intelligence Bureau officials, based on the videographed statements by a colleague that he and Narayanan had received money for transferring drawings and documents of rocket engines to two Maldivian women, Mariam Rasheeda and Fauziyya Hassan, who were suspected to be spies.

He claims that officials from the Intelligence Bureau, who initially interrogated him, wanted him to make false accusations against the top brass of ISRO.

He alleges that two IB officials had asked him to implicate A. E. Muthunayagam, his boss and then-director of the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), saying that when he refused to comply, he was tortured until he collapsed and was hospitalised.

[8] In April 1996, before the 1996 Indian general election, CBI submitted a closure report,[16] saying that there was no espionage and that the testimonies of suspects were coerced by torture.

[8]: 1  In a previous order in a related case, Kerala High Court, which had seen the videos of interrogation, had dismissed allegations of torture and made critical comments about CBI's failure to follow all the leads.

[17] In September 1999, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) passed strictures against the government of Kerala for having damaged Narayanan's distinguished career in space research along with the physical and mental torture to which he and his family were subjected.