New Delhi: Former aircraftman Ranjith K.K. has returned to his Kerala home in Malappuram district, where he takes up odd jobs, waiting for the conclusion of his trial. He continues to live under the shadow of a serious charge—that he betrayed India by leaking sensitive information to Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI.
Around 2012, Ranjith who was then 28 was allegedly honey-trapped on Facebook by ‘Mc Naught Damini’, an alias used to lure him to work as a defence analyst for a UK-based defence magazine on the promise of extra income.
He stands accused of sharing classified information on Indian Air Force stations, Operation Indradhanush, which was a joint exercise between the IAF and the Royal Air Force, and key defence installations with ‘Mc Naught Damini’ via emails and on social media.
In December 2015, an FIR was filed against him based on the evidence, including financial transactions or payments that he allegedly received in exchange for information. Ranjith’s arrest followed. Investigators later found that ‘Mc Naught Damini’ was actually a man who worked as a Pakistan Intelligence Operative (PIO).
After spending seven years in jail, half of the maximum sentence under the Official Secrets Act Section 3, which outlines what constitutes spying, Ranjith was granted bail in December 2023. At the time, the court noted the delay in legal proceedings, highlighting that despite the authorities filing the charge sheet in 2016, the case went to trial in December 2017, and framing the charges against Ranjith took another three years.
The court described the delay as “glaring”. A decade later, the case remains at the stage of prosecution evidence.
But it was not an isolated case—a trend reflected even in official records.
Some ultimately end in acquittals and some in reduced sentences, contrasting starkly with the lengthy duration of the trials and the media hullabaloo at the time of the registration of such cases. Cases registered under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) often spark intense media attention and public outcry when they first surface, as seen in the latest cases lodged across India after the conflict with Pakistan.
Social media influencer Jyoti Malhotra and the daily-wage labourers, Palak Sher Masih and Suraj Masih, among others, have been booked under the Official Secrets Act for espionage activities.
Police have lodged several other cases under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) sections relating to threatening India’s sovereignty and unity and keeping in touch with Pakistan High Commission officials who India declared persona non-grata.
Speaking to ThePrint, a senior police officer said, “In cases under the OSA, where there is no hard physical evidence, the prosecution case relies heavily on corroborative or circumstantial evidence.
“If there is a document derived from the accused, say with the mention ‘Classified’ or termed as ‘Classified’ by the relevant domain experts, it is comparatively a better scenario than cases where there is no direct evidence found in possession of the accused.”
The officer, who did not wish to be named, explained that the prosecution has to justify and prove in court that the said documents or evidence found in possession of the accused are, in nature, confidential and secret and would have proved beneficial to the enemy nation.
“These cases stretch on for years, the accused get bail, and the investigating officers change,” the officer added.
Since the 1990s, the most noteworthy cases that have come into the spotlight, both nationally and internationally, are the Nambi Narayanan case, commonly referred to as the ‘Fake ISRO Espionage Case’, and the 2006 Naval War Room leak case.
Last year, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a charge sheet against two former directors general of police and three other retired police officers for falsely framing Narayanan, charged with selling secret rocket technology to Pakistan. A probe by the CBI did not find any evidence against Narayanan, and the Supreme Court granted him compensation while clearing his name.
The 2006 Naval War Room case involved the disclosure of sensitive defence information from the Naval War Room. While retired Captain Salam Singh Rathore was sentenced to a seven-year jail term under the Official Secrets Act in 2018, the second accused, Commander (retired) Jarnail Singh Kalra, was acquitted. The alleged kingpin, a former Indian naval officer, retired Lieutenant Ravi Shankaran, is now suspected to be living in the UK. Other sacked naval officers continue to face trial.
Looking at the data and past cases under the Official Secrets Act, ThePrint cuts through the clamour to better understand challenges faced by the prosecution and legal gaps, among other factors, which make it hard for these cases to withstand the test of time.
Beyond the media noise
Once the media furore dies down, what remains is the long, grinding process of presenting prosecution evidence and corroborating the chain of events in court.
In many such cases, trials drag on for years, the accused eventually get bail, the investigating officers are transferred or replaced, and the public interest fades.
Take, for example, a 1999 case involving two retired defence personnel. In 2010, a Delhi court acquitted one of them, citing the failure of the prosecution to prove espionage and conspiracy charges against him beyond a reasonable doubt, but convicted the other under provisions related to obtaining and communicating secret information to benefit an enemy or impact India’s sovereignty, integrity, or security, and some sections of the erstwhile IPC, relying on the recovery of a telephone directory. The latter served a three-year sentence.
In another case from 2002, Pradeep Kumar, then an unemployed law graduate, was accused of spying. He faced serious charges under the Official Secrets Act (OSA), sedition and criminal conspiracy, carrying penalties of up to 14 years in prison. After two criminal trials, a Kanpur court in 2014 ‘honourably acquitted’ him, finding no substance in the prosecution case.
Separately, a case filed in 2016 led to the arrest of four individuals in Delhi, including a personal assistant to a then Samajwadi Party Member of Parliament, on similar allegations. The personal assistant was discharged after two years, whereas the other three are out on bail as their trial remains stuck at the prosecution evidence stage.
Data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) highlights chronic delays and high pendency in trials of OSA cases.
According to the 2023 NCRB report, cases under Official Secrets Act had a court pendency rate of 98.5 percent in 2022. That year, there were 55 OSA cases, zero convictions, one discharge, and two acquittals, reflecting a zero percent conviction rate.
In 2021, of the 55 OSA cases lodged, one ended in a conviction and two in acquittals. The conviction rate was 33.3 percent, and the pendency rate was 97.4 percent.
Before that, 2020 saw 39 OSA cases, one conviction and one acquittal. So, the conviction rate was 50 percent, but nearly 98.3 percent of cases remained pending.
The trend was similar in 2019, with 39 cases, one acquittal, and no convictions. The pendency rate was 98.9 percent. In 2018, there were 40 OSA cases, three convictions and one acquittal, yielding the highest annual conviction rate of the past few years—75 percent.
Nearly 94.7 percent of the cases were still pending trial.
Procedural complexities, outdated legal framework
The figures showed a consistent pattern—high rates of pendency and low conviction rates—which raises critical questions and puts the spotlight on the challenges affecting these cases, legal experts and officials in investigating agencies say. They note several factors act as the main hurdles for the prosecution, resulting in delays in the trial.
Advocate Vijay Aggarwal noted that to prove a case against the accused under the Official Secrets Act based on circumstantial evidence, what is crucial from the prosecution side is proving the complete chain of events leading up to the arrest.
Advocate Rajiv Mohan, the public prosecutor in the 2012 Delhi gangrape case, highlighted the outdated nature of the colonial-era OSA, calling it ill-equipped to tackle modern espionage, often driven by technology and open source information. Mohan, who had been appearing for OSA cases lodged by the Special Cell since 2002, also appeared in the Navy War Room leak case till 2014.
Mohan urged reforms to address commercial espionage and streamline overlapping provisions, such as OSA Section 3 and OSA Section 5, with the latter defining ‘wrongful communication’ and penalties for the offence. He said multiple OSA sections are invoked in most cases due to legal gaps, making trials complex and giving defence lawyers scope to poke holes.
“These sections often intersect but differ technically, complicating and prolonging the legal process. Streamlining them would aid investigators and speed up trials,” he added.
According to Mohan, with the law not clearly defining modern spying and espionage, vastly evolved and commercially motivated, the prosecution now struggles to prove the threats to national interest in court.
“The biggest hurdle is proving in court that the act in question threatens India’s security or national interest,” Mohan said, noting that the law enacted in 1923 and last amended in 1967 fails to reflect the present-day realities.
With most information now available online, barring classified material held by the external affairs or defence ministries, the accused often argue that the information was already in the public domain, the advocate said.
“The prosecution must then prove that such publicly available information is still sensitive and its disclosure is harmful to the nation and done with a prejudicial intent to harm India’s sovereignty,” he added.
Mohan explained that Official Secrets Act is still stuck with a concept of spying, which, today, is outdated and not aligned with present-day techniques.
“Today, spying is not just what it used to be—now, it is backed and well-equipped with technology. It has also changed according to the current circumstances,” the advocate said, stressing the need to amend the law.
Mohan highlighted another critical concern under the umbrella of espionage—commercial espionage. “For instance, foreign agencies often seek early access to details of India’s defence deals to pre-emptively float tenders with similar specifications. The current law does not adequately address this commercial angle in espionage cases,” he said.
Advocate Mohan also noted that under the current law, the prosecution has to produce pre-charge evidence, which, again, is another time-consuming procedure or a double exercise.
“A complaint case must be filed by a Government of India-authorised person [under OSA Section 13],” Mohan said, adding that Section 13 urgently needs an amendment, allowing the “cognisance of a charge sheet with prior sanction from the government”.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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