The Karnataka High Court has refused to quash criminal proceedings against a 27-year-old aerospace engineering graduate who allegedly sold sensitive military technology of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas that was planned to be used on Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), on the Dark Web, stated a report by The New Indian Express.
AMCA, a more advanced fighter than the LCA Tejas, is under design and development with the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and Aircraft Research & Design Centre (ARDC) of HAL.
The data leaked to the Dark Web pertained to defence secrets with regard to the installation of characteristics of moderate to high angles of attack concerning the aircraft, its design, fabrication, measurement and dynamic derivates, all for enriching himself, the court noted. Such usage of the Dark Web for defence secrets to be uploaded has a devastating effect on national security and would have destabilised the defence of the nation.
The accused, Siva Rama Krishna Chennuboina, a native of Andhra Pradesh and residing at Yelahanka in Bengaluru, was a BTech graduate from Manipal University and interned at the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Indian Institute of Science (IISc). In 2015-16, Chennuboina went on in-plant training and project work at ARDC, HAL, where the sensitive work was being carried out. He then returned to IISc’s Aerospace Engineering Department for two stints of internship in 2016 and 2017. A project related to AMCA was allotted to this department while he was interning there.
In 2021, the Ministry of Defence suspected that there had been some foul play by persons in ADA who leaked the data. ADA then complained to the cybercrime police on September 17, 2021, following which Chennuboina was arrested on April 18, 2022.
The Union government had submitted before the court that the petitioner (Chennuboina), who had sought quashing the criminal proceedings against him, was an intern allowed to work in the preparation of a code for the LCA to be used during wartime. Chennuboina is alleged to have obtained the entire source code and published the same for sale on the Dark Web.
Justice M Nagaprasanna, while dismissing the petition filed by Chennuboina, said, "If on the plea of the petitioner, the present proceedings are quashed against him, it would amount to putting a premium on the activities of the petitioner who has acted in a manner that would compromise the security of the nation... The data that is leaked is of aeronautical technology which is used for Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft, all of which form defence documents of the Ministry of Defence. The investigating officer, after the arrest of the petitioner on April 18, 2022, collected several documents in which the petitioner was involved and leaked the data."
