NAGPUR: Seven years after his arrest, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court on Monday exonerated a former scientist with BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited, Nishant Agarwal, of charges of espionage and cyber terrorism, but upheld his conviction under Section 3(1) C of Official Secrets Act for possessing classified information on his personal device, carrying a three-year sentence. Having already served a longer period in jail, his lawyers say the ruling paves way for his release.
Agarwal had been accused of passing missile secrets to Pakistani intelligence operatives and of cyber terrorism, offences for which a sessions court had imposed a 14-year term. The high court set aside those convictions after hearing his appeal against the trial court's June 2024 judgment, while maintaining the finding that he illegally held sensitive data.
Arrested in October 2018, Agarwal remained in custody till he secured bail in April 2023. He was again sent to prison in June 2024 after the lower court convicted him on all counts.
Advocate Chaitanya Barve, who argued Agarwal's appeal, said, "Formalities for his release will be initiated after the order copy is received. One of his main contentions was a deposition by an expert from India Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), that none of the information was passed on to any other device from Agarwal's laptop. The point was stressed to prove there was no leakage of information to an enemy agent. The conviction that he illegally held information in his personal device will also be challenged."
CERT-In is a govt body that deals with computer-related issues like hacking.
Agarwal lost his post at BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited, an Indo-Russian joint venture, soon after his arrest. He was represented at the high court by senior counsel Sunil Manohar, with Barve assisting.
He came under the scanner in October 2018, when a team from the Anti-Terrorist Squad of Uttar Pradesh, joined by Maharashtra counterparts, questioned him at dawn on a Dussehra holiday and arrested him after a day's interrogation. A young scientist who had received the President's award and married less than a year earlier, Agarwal faced charges under Section 66F of Information Technology Act for cyber terrorism and under section 5(a)(b)(c)(d) and section 5(3) of the Official Secrets Act for holding classified information, the latter attracting the three-year term.
According to Maharashtra ATS, Agarwal was allegedly in contact with two Pakistani agents posing as young women — Neha Sharma, Pooja Ranjan and Sejal Kapoor —via social media apps such as Facebook. They purported to offer him an overseas job and, purportedly through malware embedded in Qwhisper, Chat to Hire and X Trust, extracted sensitive missile information from his personal computer in violation of BAPL's strict security protocol.
Other scientists were also on Pakistan agents’ radar: Defence lawyerDefence lawyer Chaitanya Barve during cross examination proceedings in the high court on Monday stated Pakistani agents had tried to establish contact with other officials of BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited (BAPL), besides Nishant Agarwal. The two Pakistani intelligence operatives posing as Indian girls — Neha Sharma and Pooja Ranjan — were also in the friend list of their social media apps, he stated, adding this part of the enemy’s meticulous planning to extract information.
Sources in BAPL told TOI that no classified data was lost and though Agarwal had some information on his personal device, it was not of much help to enemy agents. This is because a single employee does not have access to complete data of the system.
They added that former scientist Nishant Agarwal was too low in the hierarchy to access any critical or sensitive information that could have been valuable to an adversary. However, the organisation’s rules prohibit copying data from official systems onto personal devices.
The anti-terrorist squad had also cross-verified with BAPL, seeking to confirm whether the documents found with Agarwal were part of secret information, the source said. The organisation has a well-layered security system designed to prevent unauthorised copying or leakage of data, the source added.
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