Bombay High Court
Nishant Pradeepkumar Aggarwal vs State Of Mah., Thr. P.S.O. P.S. ... on 5 February, 2020
Author: V. M. Deshpande
Bench: V.M. Deshpande
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IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
: NAGPUR BENCH : NAGPUR.
CRIMINAL APPLICATION (BA) NO. 824 OF 2019
SISHANT S/o PRADEEPKUMAR AGGARWAL
VERSUS
STATE OF MAH., THRU. P.S.O., P.S., SONEGAON, NAGPUR AND ANOTHER
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Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Court's or Judge's Order
Coram, appearances, Court's Orders
or directions and Registrar's order
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Mr. Sunil V. Manohar, Senior Advocate with Mr. P.S. Jaiswal, Advocate
for the applicant
Mr. M. J. Khan, A. P. P. for the non-applicants/State
CORAM : V. M. DESHPANDE, J.
DATE : FEBUARY 05, 2020.
1. This is an application under Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for bail.
2. The applicant is arrested in connection with Crime No.7/2018 registered by Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS), Lucknow for the offence punishable under Sections 3, 4, 5 and 9 of the Official Secret Act, 1923.
3. Heard Mr. Sunil V. Manohar, the learned senior Advocate for the applicant and Mr. M. J. Khan, the learned Additional Public Prosecutor for the non-applicants. Also perused the detailed reply filed by the State.
4. At the outset, it may be mentioned in this order that the learned senior Advocate made submissions for grant of bail in view of Section 5 of the Official Secret Act, 1923.
::: Uploaded on - 13/02/2020 ::: Downloaded on - 07/06/2020 17:22:47 :::2 ba824.19.odt It is also his submission that Section 3 of the said Act cannot be made applicable because the applicant is not a spy. He submitted that even if the entire case of the prosecution is taken against the applicant, the case of the prosecution cannot travel beyond the scope of Section 5 of the Act and therefore, the applicant be released on bail.
5. It is to be mentioned here that the learned senior Advocate did not touch even remotely the factual aspects of the case as disclosed in the reply filed by the prosecution.
6. As per the reply, the first information report was earlier registered by Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS), Lucknow on 04.10.2018 for the offences punishable under Sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 120-B, 120(1) of the Indian Penal Code, under Section 66-D of the Information Technology Act and under Sections, 3, 4, 5 and 9 of the Official Secret Act, 1923 against two facebook accounts namely 'Neha Sharma' and 'Pooja Ranjan'. It is the case of the prosecution that these are fabricated facebook accounts created outside the country and through these accounts, they used to collect the information of the officers of Defence establishment and also to identify the State Government Officers which are dealing with the issues related to National Security and secret classified, related to the defence of country.
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7. The investigation was given to PI Pankaj Awasthi, attached to ATS, Lucknow. With the help of Computer Emergency Response Team, New Delhi under Ministry of Electronic and Information Technology, Government of India, the Investigating Officer obtained facebook business record details and it was found that name 'Neha Sharma' was provided by facebook creation I.P. (Internet Protocol) and the said IP is created in Islamabad (Pakistan) under fictitious name of Neha Sharma as per IP Tracker software available, which was used by the Investigating Officer for tracking IP address. It is also found that this facebook account in the name of Neha Sharma at Islamabad is operating from 20.5.2015. During investigation, it was found that two senior employees of the Defence Material and Store Research Development, Kanpur, which is under the Defence Ministry of Government of India, namely Dr. Arti Kole, Scientist (F) and Dr. Devmalya Roy, Scientist (E) and the present applicant, who is posted as Senior System Engineer, Bramhos Aerospace Pvt. Ltd., Nagpur were in continuous touch with said facebook account and these persons were facebook friends of said facebook account.
8. It is not in dispute that the present applicant was appointed as an Executive Trainee and joined his duty at Bramhos Aerospace Pvt. Ltd. at Hyderabad on 01.7.2013. Thereafter, worked as System Engineer at the said place from 30.12.2013 to 24.8.2014. Subsequently, he was transferred at Nagpur.
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9. During investigation, it was revealed by the Executive Director (Production), Bramhos Aerospace Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad that the computer, which was accessible to the applicant, was also having secret document of technical description of Brahmos Missile. The document was related to Bramhos Missile and the document was termed as secret and sensitive document. It is also not in dispute that the applicant at the time of joining duties has given an undertaking to maintain secrecy.
10. As per the prosecution, during house search of the applicant at Nagpur, the Investigating Officer has found various secret documents in his personal laptop and hard disk available in his house at Nagpur. The prosecuting agency in paragraph 9 of the reply has disclosed the material collected against the applicant during the course of investigation. As observed in the preceding paragraph, the learned senior Advocate for the applicant did not touch the factual aspect of this matter. Therefore, there would be no difficulty to accept the statements made on oath in paragraph 9 of the reply relating to the material collected during course of the investigation.
11. It is also found that the applicant was intending to procure employment in United Kingdom (UK) and for that in a social media platform under the name of Sejal Kapoor, secret information was shared.
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12. During investigation, it was found that Scientists of Cyber Forensic Laboratory of Computer Emergency Response Team, New Delhi, Government of India has issued Digital Forensic Data Retrieval and Analysis Report, which shows that cache files i.e. 4,47,734 have been leaked from the laptop and hard disk of the present applicant.
13. In my view, in the light of the detailed factual aspects as disclosed in the reply filed by the State, it is not the case of the prosecution about "honey trap" only, as tried to be portrayed by the learned senior Advocate. In my view, prima facie, there is material to show that spying at the hands of the applicant can not completely ruled out, which pertains to confidential and classified information pertaining to National Security. Therefore, in my view, the applicant does not deserve any discretion. Hence, the application is rejected.
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