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SC to set up an expert committee to inquire into Pegasus row, order next week
The CJI heads the bench which is seized of a clutch of petitions that have demanded a court-monitored investigation into alleged use of Pegasus spyware for unlawful snooping
The Supreme Court will set up an expert committee to inquire into alleged use of Israeli spyware Pegasus for mounting surveillance on Indian citizens, Chief Justice of India NV Ramana said on Thursday.
The CJI heads the bench which is seized of a clutch of petitions that have demanded a court-monitored investigation into alleged use of Pegasus spyware for unlawful snooping.
Justice Ramana informed senior advocate CU Singh about constitution of a committee during the hearing of an unconnected matter. Singh represents one of the petitioners in the bouquet of cases on Pegasus. “Please tell other lawyers too that we will pass our order next week,” the CJI told Singh.
The court had, on September 13, reserved its order in the case after the Union government declined to make public whether its agencies used the Israeli software.
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During the last hearing, the government refused to share any more information on use of Pegasus by its agencies or hand out specific information on alleged interception of some of the petitioners.
The bench, which included justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli, then said the court will pass an interim order in the next 3-4 days on constitution of an expert committee and on other ancillary issues related to an independent inquiry after considering the materials placed by the petitioners before it and the submissions made by the counsel for the parties.
After taking time earlier to reconsider the government’s previous stand against filing a detailed response on the bunch of petitions, solicitor general Tushar Mehta reiterated that use of a particular software like Pegasus cannot be a subject matter of any affidavit or a public debate.
He said the government stands by its August 16 affidavit filed on the Pegasus snooping matter. This affidavit neither confirmed nor denied the use of the military-grade spyware to hack phones of ministers, politicians, businessmen, activists and journalists and offered to instead set up an expert committee.
The government’s submissions were strongly objected to by petitioners’ lawyers who included senior counsel Kapil Sibal, Shyam Divan, Rakesh Dwivedi, Dinesh Dwivedi, Colin Gonsalves and Meenakshi Arora.
The Pegasus row erupted on July 18 after an international investigative consortium reported that the phones of Indian ministers, politicians, activists, businessmen and journalists were among the 50,000 that were potentially targeted by Pegasus, Israeli company NSO Group’s phone hacking software. According to this consortium, Pegasus can switch on a target’s phone camera and microphone, as well as access data on the device, effectively turning a phone into a pocket spy.
