NIRMAL PUN Vs. CENTRAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, a former Lt. General of Indian Army who retired in the year 1985, was arrested on January 6, 1989. The petitioner is being prosecuted for offence under section 120B read with Section 3/5 of the Official Secrets Act 1923 and Substantive Offences under sections 3/5 of the said Act.

(2.) The facts as disclosed in the F.I.R. in brief are that the petitioner and Mr. Vinod Khanna, Chairman, Concorde Industrial Pvt. Ltd. a firm dealing in procurement of equipments for defence forces and representatives of various foreign firms like SAAB, Missiles, SAAB Instruments, M/s. Misar SPA etc, entered into a criminal conspiracy sometimes in 1984 at Delhi with the object to obtain/collect secret classified official unpublished records of the Army Headquarters regarding its vital requirements of tanks and communication sets etc. In pursuance of the said criminal conspiracy the petitioner obtained/collected following secret/classified/official/unpublished information during the year 1984-87 from the Army authorities :

(3.) The aforesaid secret/classified/official/unpublished information so obtained was passed on by the petitioner to Mr. Vinod Khanna. It was also communicated by the petitioner to Mr. Khanna that the present communication sets available with the Army of the make AMPR-25, 12 are obsolete and do not give the required range or reliability. He further communicated the name of the firm with Series number who have offered tactical-cum-gunnery simulators for evaluation which were to be competitive with ET-41 (SAAB SCANIA). Mr. Vinod Khanna received the said information in pursuance of the criminal conspiracy knowing fully well that the same have been obtained bp contravening the provisions of the Official Secrets Act, 1923. The disclosure of the said secret/classified/official information to unauthorised persons or agents is likely to jeopardise the sovereigny and integrity of India or the Security of the State.