Nagpur: Nishant Agarwal, an engineer with BrahMos Aerospace, convicted and sentenced for allegedly spying for Pakistan, has been acquitted by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court.
The Court set aside the life sentence awarded to Agarwal, reducing his punishment to three years’ imprisonment, a period he has already served, and ordered his immediate release
Agarwal (28) was arrested in 2018 in a joint operation by the Anti-Terrorism Squads of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra and Military Intelligence for allegedly spying for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and leaking sensitive information related to the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile project.
A Nagpur district court convicted him under multiple provisions of the Official Secrets Act (OSA) and the IT Act, sentencing him to life imprisonment, 14 years’ rigorous imprisonment, and a fine of ₹3,000 in June this year. The court had held that Agarwal passed classified material to operatives of an enemy nation.
The engineer challenged the verdict before the High Court. After hearing the matter, the division bench of Justices Anil Kilor and Justice Pravin Patil acquitted him of all major espionage-related charges, ruling that the prosecution had failed to establish the allegations of spying.
Only one charge was upheld by the bench. This was the unauthorised possession of official documents on his personal device, for which the lower court had imposed a three-year sentence. As Agarwal had already spent more than this duration in custody, the high court directed that he be released immediately.
Originally from Nehrunagar in Roorkee, Uttarakhand, Agarwal had worked for four years as a system engineer in the technical research division of BrahMos Aerospace. Investigators had recovered classified material related to the missile system from his personal computer at his rented accommodation in Ujwal Nagar, Nagpur, triggering widespread concern over a potential security breach.
