Nishant Aggarwal was arrested in 2018 for leaking sensitive information about India's BrahMos missiles to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence in a suspected honey-trap operation.
In addition to the 14-year sentence under the Official Secrets Act, Additional Sessions Judge M.V. Special public prosecutor Jyoti Vajani told the media that Deshpande also imposed a fine of Rs 3,000 on Aggarwal.
At the time of his arrest six years ago, Agarwal was working as a senior systems engineer at BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture of DRDO and Russia's Military Industrial Consortium.
Agarwal was part of the teams working to develop India's supersonic cruise missile, which can be launched from land, sea, air and underwater, giving an edge to the country's defense forces.
The espionage scam came into limelight when Agarwal, who had been working at the company for over four years, allegedly became the victim of a honey-trap operation managed by the ISI.After coming to know about this, the Military Intelligence team along with Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh ATS conducted a raid to arrest him. In April 2023, he was granted bail by the Bombay High Court (Nagpur Bench).
According to subsequent investigation, he was in contact with two suspected operators through two Facebook accounts in the name of Pooja Rajan and Neha Sharma.
These accounts were based in Islamabad and were said to be run by ISI operatives. Investigators later said that Aggarwal became an easy target on social media due to his casual approach despite being engaged in a secret and sensitive defence-related project.
Investigators said Agarwal's laptop contained restricted and secret files, besides a software through which such classified information could be transferred to countries or organizations abroad.Aggarwal is an alumnus of the National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra and is also a winner of the Young Scientist Award presented by DRDO.
In addition to the 14-year sentence under the Official Secrets Act, Additional Sessions Judge M.V. Special public prosecutor Jyoti Vajani told the media that Deshpande also imposed a fine of Rs 3,000 on Aggarwal.
At the time of his arrest six years ago, Agarwal was working as a senior systems engineer at BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture of DRDO and Russia's Military Industrial Consortium.
Agarwal was part of the teams working to develop India's supersonic cruise missile, which can be launched from land, sea, air and underwater, giving an edge to the country's defense forces.
The espionage scam came into limelight when Agarwal, who had been working at the company for over four years, allegedly became the victim of a honey-trap operation managed by the ISI.After coming to know about this, the Military Intelligence team along with Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh ATS conducted a raid to arrest him. In April 2023, he was granted bail by the Bombay High Court (Nagpur Bench).
According to subsequent investigation, he was in contact with two suspected operators through two Facebook accounts in the name of Pooja Rajan and Neha Sharma.
These accounts were based in Islamabad and were said to be run by ISI operatives. Investigators later said that Aggarwal became an easy target on social media due to his casual approach despite being engaged in a secret and sensitive defence-related project.
Investigators said Agarwal's laptop contained restricted and secret files, besides a software through which such classified information could be transferred to countries or organizations abroad.Aggarwal is an alumnus of the National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra and is also a winner of the Young Scientist Award presented by DRDO.
