Nagpur: The Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court on Thursday granted bail to Nishant Agarwal, the young engineer employed in Nagpur unit of BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited (BAPL) charged with leaking sensitive information. Agarwal has been in Nagpur jail for over four years, a report in local media said.
Agarwal, a senior systems engineer in BrahMos Aerospace facility in Nagpur, was arrested on October 8, 2018 in a joint operation by Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra Anti- Terrorism Squad (ATS). The Sessions Court had rejected the bail plea of Agarwal accused of passing off sensitive information to Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI.
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Thursday 13 March 2025
According to the report, granting bail to Agarwal, the High Court observed that tardy progress in the trial violated fundamental rights of the accused no matter how stringent the bail norms under the law which he has been arrested may be. The High Court in its order has observed that gross delay in disposal of the case can justify invocation of Article 21 of the Constitution. Article 21 says no individual can be deprived of life or liberty except with the procedure laid down in the law.
Agarwal spent most of the time under solitary confinement in the jail. He has been charged under Official Secrets Act for keeping classified information related to missiles in his personal laptop, which was leaked outside. It is suspected that Pakistani intelligence operatives had laid a honey trap for him.
The order cites cases including those involving TADA or Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance Act stressing that bail provisions can be stringent but also trials should be finished within time. The constitutionality of harsh bail conditions in such special enactments have been primarily justified on the touchstone of speedy trials to ensure protection of innocent citizens, says the order.
This was a successive bail application in Agarwal’s case. The first plea was rejected in June 2022. After six months of the rejection, his lawyers argued that there was no progress in the trial. The defence lawyer pointed out that even witnesses did not turn up. So far only six witnesses have been examined and 11 more need to be done. Each adjournment in this case was of a month because the witnesses had come from Uttar Pradesh.
BrahMos Aerospace is a joint venture between the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Military Industrial Consortium (NPO Mashinostroyenia) of Russia.
As a BrahMos employee, Agarwal was not supposed to reveal his identity which he did on a social media platform. This indicates his direct involvement in anti-national activities, the prosecution lawyer had argued.
