Snooping allegation: Committee may submit report in six weeks

The two-member committee appointed to investigate allegations of phone tapping of opposition leaders by the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government will

The two-member committee appointed to investigate allegations of phone tapping of opposition leaders by the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government will also look into the involvement of government officials and their foreign tours. The home department has also directed the committee to investigate private telecom companies to decipher if unofficial surveillance had been carried out by them. The panel is expected to submit its report on the probe in six weeks.

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Home minister Anil Deshmukh said on Monday that the committee, under Shrikant Singh, additional chief secretary (home) and Amitesh Kumar, joint commissioner, state intelligence department, will submit its report in six weeks. The committee was appointed in the wake of allegations that phones of leaders from the opposition were being tapped ahead of the Assembly polls and during the formation of the government.

Deshmukh said that the committee will also probe the Israel tour by a few government officers and their deal with a company to procure software needed for phone tapping. “The phone tapping facility was grossly misused by the then government for political gain. The abuse of power has serious implications concerning national security and the right to freedom and privacy,” he said.

Deshmukh had last month alleged that phones of leaders like Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, and Sena leader Sanjay Raut, were tapped by the Devendra Fadnavis government in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections and 2019 state Assembly polls. Fadnavis, however, had denied the charges.

Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh first levelled the allegations through a Twitter post last month in which he claimed that a few officials from the Maharashtra government had gone to Israel to talk to NSO, the firm behind malware Pegasus. Singh urged Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray to conduct an inquiry into the matter.

Surveillance of phones is a power exercised under provisions of the India Telegraph Act. In Maharashtra, the anti-terrorist squad (ATS) and state intelligence department have the power to tap the phones of suspected persons.