Gujarat HC Denies Bail To Former ISRO Officer Accused Of Sharing Sensitive Information With Pakistani Woman

He was arrested under Section 66 F(1)(B) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 by Ahmedabad's Anti-Terrorism Police Station last year for alleged cyber terrorism.

A bench of Justice MR Mengdey noted that he had previously withdrawn a bail application with the option to file a fresh one after six months if there were delays in the trial process.

The Court highlighted, “The record indicates that the trial of the offence has commenced and several witnesses have already been examined by the prosecution. Therefore, there appears no change in circumstance after the filing of the earlier bail application.”

Senior Advocate Shalin Mehta appeared for the Applicant and Advocate JK Shah appeared for the Respondent.

The counsel for the Applicant cited a communication from the Space Applications Centre stating that the shared information was neither secret nor sensitive in nature and did not pertain to national security or intellectual property.

He emphasized that applicant had a commendable 17-year career with ISRO and claimed he was unaware that the recipient of the photographs was located in Pakistan.

Considering the arguments and evidence presented, the Court observed that the communication from the Space Applications Centre had already been available during the previous bail application withdrawal. The Court added, “This material would obviously be placed before the trial court and trial court would consider it in light of the other material available on record. Therefore, it would not be proper for this court to observe anything in this regard since trial is already in progress.”

Therefore, it deemed appropriate to leave its consideration to the trial court.

Then Court added, “However, if the entire communication is perused, it indicates that the files / images which were forwarded by the present applicant to a lady, who was stationed in Pakistan, were related to the Space Applications Centre, ISRO, Ahmedabad and these images were taken by the applicant without any authorization from the authorities of the Space Applications Centre, nor any permission in that regard had been sought by him.”

In light of the ongoing trial and the allegation that the pictures were taken without authorization, the Court concluded that there was insufficient reason to grant bail.

Cause Title: Kalpeshkumar Babubhai Turi v. State of Gujarat, [2024:GUJHC:28105]

Appearance:

Applicant: Senior Advocate Shalin Mehta, along with advocates Vicky B Meta and Palak G Jadeja