The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has reportedly issued a notice to the State government on a plea by the jailed Nishant Agrawal, former missile engineer at BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited (BAPL) who was found guilty of spying for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan and leaking official secrets. Justice GA Sanap has issued a notice seeking the state’s response within two weeks.
The Nagpur district court on Monday, June 3 sentenced Agrawal to life imprisonment under the Official Secrets Act. Additional Sessions Court judge M.V. Deshpande said in the order Agarwal was convicted under Section 235 of the Criminal Procedure Code for an offense punishable under Section 66 (f) of the IT Act and various Sections of the Official Secrets Act (OSA).
The award-winning engineer Agrawal has to undergo 14 years of rigorous imprisonment and has to pay a penalty of INR 3,000.
“The court sentenced Agarwal to life imprisonment and RI for 14 years under the Official Secrets Act and fined him ₹3,000,” special public prosecutor Jyoti Vajani said.
Agarwal was employed in the technical research section of the company and was responsible for producing the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile. He worked there for four years.
It is worth noting that this is not the first offense conducted by Agrawal. In 2018, Agrawal was arrested from his residence in Nagpur in a joint operation carried out by the anti-terror teams of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. The probe revealed that crucial documents related to the BrahMos missile were found on his personal computers, which was in violation of BAPL’s security norms.
The investigation by Anti Terror Squad (ATS) revealed that Agrawal was honey-trapped and consequently shared sensitive information on social media despite strict guidelines. Two women allegedly named Neha Sharma and Pooja Ranjanbefriended Agrawal on social media and lured him with a job offer abroad. They shared an online form link with Agrawal to fill in his details, but it turned out to be a malware that accessed sensitive missile documents.
