In a significant ruling on Monday, the Nagpur district court sentenced former BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd engineer Nishant Agarwal to life imprisonment under the Official Secrets Act for espionage activities on behalf of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, ISI. Along with the life sentence, Agarwal will serve an additional 14 years of rigorous imprisonment and pay a fine of Rs 3,000.
Additional sessions court judge MV Deshpande stated that Agarwal was convicted under section 235 of the Criminal Procedure Code for offenses punishable under section 66(f) of the IT Act and various sections of the Official Secrets Act (OSA). He was found guilty of possessing classified missile-related information on his personal laptop, which was leaked to external entities. It is believed that Pakistani intelligence operatives ensnared him through a 'honeytrap'.
"Agarwal has been sentenced to life imprisonment and 14 years of rigorous imprisonment under the Official Secrets Act, along with a Rs 3,000 fine," stated Special Public Prosecutor Jyoti Vajani.
Agarwal, who was employed in the technical research section of BrahMos Aerospace's missile center in Nagpur, was arrested in 2018 in a coordinated operation by military intelligence and the Anti-Terrorism Squads (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. He was charged under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the stringent Official Secrets Act.
Agarwal's role at BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture between the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia’s Military Industrial Consortium (NPO Mashinostroyenia), involved handling sensitive technical information. He was accused of leaking this information to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
After spending nearly five years in jail, Agarwal was granted bail by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court last April. The court observed that the slow progress of the trial violated his fundamental rights, despite the stringent bail norms under the law. The court noted that the excessive delay in the case's resolution justified the invocation of Article 21 of the Constitution, which ensures that no individual can be deprived of life or liberty except through legal procedures.
