Delhi Court grants bail to former NIA officer in document leak case involving Lashkar-e-Taiba

A former National Investigation Agency (NIA) officer accused of allegedly leaking sensitive information to a person who passed on the same to a handler of proscribed terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) has been granted bail by a Special Court in Delhi. [NIA v. Arvind Negi].Special NIA judge Parveen Singh observed that the evidence collected by the agency in the case was documentary in nature and granted bail to Superintendent of Police (SP) Arvind Negi on a personal bail bond of ₹1 lakh.“The entire evidence to prove these facts which has been relied upon by the prosecution, is documentary/electronic in nature as it is the information retrieved from the phone of the accused that had allegedly established communication of these documents to his co-accused,” the bail order stated..Dealing with the NIA’s concern of Negi tampering with the evidence and influencing witnesses, the Court said not much weightage can be given to this argument.“Without getting into much controversy whether these documents were secret or not, I find that at this stage keeping in view the nature of the evidence, the fact that chances of accused tampering with the evidence or influencing the witnesses are very less and the period of incarceration of the applicant, the application is allowed,” held the Court..Negi, who was previously awarded the President's Police Medal for his investigation into the Hurriyat terror funding case, argued that the informer to whom he allegedly passed some secret documents was introduced to him by a senior officer, and that the services of the informer were utilised for cracking terror cases. It was also contended that the leaked documents in question were not covered under the Official Secrets Act.The NIA, on the contrary, alleged that the informer in question had passed on those secret documents to an LeT handler. The agency also argued that Negi played a pivotal role in passing sensitive information and restricted documents to the accused persons. Further, it was contended that Negi was charged under Section 5 of the Official Secrets Act, which was a non-bailable offence..The Court, however, underlined that the offence under Section 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the Indian Penal Code, for which Negi was charged, was a bailable offence. As regards the alleged non-bailable offence, it observed,“With regard to Section 5 (wrongful communication or information) of Official Secrets Act, I find that what the prosecution needs to prove the commission of this offence is that there was a secret document which was possession of the accused/applicant and that he has communicated that document to his co-accused…”Negi was granted bail on the condition that he will not leave the country without the Court’s permission and will not tamper with the evidence or influence witnesses..Advocates Madhav Khurana, Sang Rattan Negi and Roya Arora represented the officer. Special Public Prosecutor Rahul Tyagi appeared for the NIA..[Read Order]