Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Oct.26: The Supreme Court will rule on a group of petitions requesting a court-monitored investigation into the Pegasus spyware case tomorrow.
On September 23, India’s Chief Justice stated that the Court was considering forming a technical committee to investigate claims of eavesdropping of journalists, activists, politicians, and others using the Israeli corporation NSO’s Pegasus spyware. The order was being delayed, according to the CJI, due to difficulty in recruiting people ready to serve on the technical committee.
After the Central Government refused to file an affidavit saying whether it had utilised the Pegasus spyware or not, a bench consisting of CJI NV Ramana, Justice Surya Kant, and Justice Hima Kohli reserved an interim order in the Pegasus case on September 13.
The problem was relevant to national security, according to Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, and so could not be made the subject of a discussion or public dialogue. He said that the government cannot tell if it has utilised any specific software for security purposes on affidavit because doing so would warn terrorist groups. Taking into account the gravity of the claims, the Centre has agreed to form a technical committee to investigate the matter, and the committee will present a report to the Court, according to the SG.
The bench had stated that it did not require any information relevant to national security or defence, and that it was merely seeking explanation on charges of civilian snooping.
“We are not interested in knowing matters related to security or defence. We are only concerned to know whether Govt has used any method other than admissible under law”, Justice Surya Kant had said.
“We are again reiterating we are not interested in knowing matters related to security or defence. We are only concerned, as my brother said, we have journalists, activists etc before us…to know whether Govt has used any method other than admissible under law,” CJI NV Ramana had said.
Senior Advocates Kapil Sibbal, Shyam Divan, Meenaskhi Arora, Rakesh Dwivedi, Dinesh Dwivedi, and CU Singh represented the petitioners, who argued that a committee appointed by the Centre could not be expected to work in a fair and impartial way. According to the petitioners, NSO, the Israeli business that developed Pegasus, only offers its services to governments, and the Indian government cannot be expected to conduct a fair investigation when it is under suspicion.
The Supreme Court had given the Central Government a notice before admission in the batch of petitions on August 17th.
Because national security issues are implicated, the Central Government has told the Supreme Court that it does not wish to file any new affidavits in the Pegasus case. The Centre also stated that it is willing to present the facts to the expert committee it plans to form to look into the issues.
