In this paper, an effort has been made to study the recently developed pseudospark discharge-based 20 kV/200 A plasma cathode electron gun by using 3-D particle-in-cell simulation code VORPAL for discharge current analysis to validate the experiments. The experimental and simulation studies have been performed at different working pressures between 50 and 100 mTorr and at different applied voltages between 10 and 20 kV. Argon has been used as the working gas. The temporal behavior of the discharge current, discharge voltage, potential distribution within the hollow cathode region and the electron plasma density buildup has been analyzed from the simulations. The experiments have been performed to measure the dynamic nature of the discharge voltage and discharge current at different operating conditions. An agreement between the simulated and experimental results has been obtained well within 10 % for the discharge currents at different applied voltages, qualifying the design. © 2015, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science.