NAGPUR: Nishant Agarwal, a scientist at BrahMos Aerospace Limited, who was arrested in 2018 for allegedly passing sensitive defense secrets to Pakistan intelligence operatives, has been absolved of the major charges under the Information Technology Act and the Official Secrets Act.The lower court had earlier sentenced Agarwal to 14 years in prison for allegedly using IT systems to transmit classified information to adversaries of the country. However, in a significant development, the higher judiciary has now cleared him of these charges.

The only conviction upheld pertains to the possession of official documents on his personal device, for which the lower court had sentenced him to three years in prison. As Agarwal has already served this term during his detention, he is now eligible for immediate release.This ruling effectively ends the legal battle for Agarwal in the high-profile case that had attracted widespread attention due to the sensitive nature of the alleged breach involving defense secrets.Arrested in October 2018 through a joint operation by Military Intelligence (MI) and the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, Agrawal was employed in the technical research section of BAPL, an Indo-Russian joint venture that manufactures BrahMos missiles.Investigations revealed that crucial documents related to the BrahMos missile were found on his personal computers, violating BAPL’s security norms.The three apps that Pakistani spies used to trap BrahMos scientist Nishant AgrawalThe chats showed that ‘Sejal’ was part of a group that shared data and tips on deceiving Indian defence staffers. Awasthi told the court that on Sejal’s directions, Agrawal had clicked on links sent by her and installed three apps on his personal laptop in 2017.These apps were: Qwhisper, Chat to Hire and X-trust.These three apps were actually malware that stole data from Nishant’s laptop, which contained classified information. Investigations claim that crucial documents related to the BrahMos missile were found on his personal computers, violating BAPL’s security norms.Nishant is said to have chatted with Sejal on LinkedIn as well, where she reportedly showed interest in hiring him, posing as a recruiter in UK’s Hays Aviation.