Nagpur Court Convicts And Awards Life Sentence To Ex BrahMos Engineer On Cyber Terrorism Charges

The Sessions Court, Nagpur today convicted and sentenced ex-BrahMos engineer Nishant Agrawal to life imprisonment on charges of acts of cyber terrorism and spying for Pakistan.

Additional Sessions Judge MV Deshpande convicted Agarwal under section 66F (acts of cyber terrorism) of the Information Technology Act and sentenced him to life.

The court also convicted him under Sections 3 (penalties for spying) and Section 5 (wrongful communication, etc., of information) of the Official Secrets Act, 1923, imposing rigorous imprisonment for 14 years and 3 years respectively. The court imposed a fine of Rs. 3000 on Agrawal.

A copy of the detailed order is awaited.

Agrawal was a senior systems engineer with BrahMos Aerospace and was involved in missile projects. He was arrested in 2018 near Nagpur by the Anti Terrorism Squad, UP and the Military Intelligence on charges of passing classified information about the projects to Pakistan.

Advocate Jyoti Vajani for ATS told Live Law that Agrawal was in touch with two Facebook accounts based out of Islamabad in Pakistan, and he received links which turned out to be malware.

According to the charge sheet, secret and restricted files were found on Agrawal's personal laptop. Further, software was also found using which the classified information in his laptop was transferred to foreign countries and anti-social elements, the prosecution alleged.

In 2022, the High Court rejected his bail application with the liberty to file another if the trial does not progress in six months.

In May last year, the HC granted him bail observing that there is nothing to suggest that he committed the alleged acts with intention.

In the bail proceedings, the prosecution told the HC that this is a case of honey trap where officers are lured towards indulging in illegal espionage activities.

Over the period of nine months, only six witnesses were examined, the court had noted, adding that most of the witnesses had not turned up to testify.

Thus, the HC had concluded that the trial was not likely to begin in the near future and granted him bail.

Post his conviction today, the Sessions Court has ordered him to surrender his bail bonds.