Solicitor General Tushar Mehta today told the Supreme Court that the question of whether the Central government used Pegasus or any other surveillance software cannot be debated in affidavits filed before the Court.
The submission was made before the Bench of Chief Justice of India NV Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli during the hearing of the petitions seeking various prayers including directions to the government to reveal whether it had used the Pegasus software to spy on citizens, reports Bar and Bench.
“Such issues of whether Centre was using Pegasus or not cannot be debated in affidavits and can be looked into by domain experts…whether it has been done by A software or B Software cannot be said on affidavit. Domain experts unconnected with the government will be looking it and we will place all before them,” SG Mehta said.
In response, Justice Kant said,
“When the matter came up a few days back and national security arose, we said that no one is interested to disclose anything which comprises internal or external national integrity…We were only expecting a limited affidavit since there are petitioners before us who say their rights have been infringed by A or B agency. You had to say whether its done lawfully or unlawfully.”
CJI Ramana made it clear that the issue of national security was unrelated to the present proceedings.
“We are not interested to know about national interest issues, but we are only on the face of allegations that some software was used to snoop certain citizens like lawyers etc. We wanted to know if it’s done to see if it’s permissible under law.”
Section 69 of the Information Technology Act allows interceptions by which terrorism links have been unearthed, the SG said. He also referred to a statement made by the Union Minister of Information & Technology during the Monsoon Session of Parliament regarding the Pegasus controversy.
“I am not averse to certain individuals claiming invasion of privacy. This is serious and must be got into. The question is whether its Pegasus or something. Our stand is putting this into affidavit will not serve national interest,” SG Mehta insisted.
He thus prayed that a committee of domain experts without members of the government be formed to look into the issues raised in the petitions.
However, the Court said,
“We are going back again and again. We are not interested to know what you are doing to protect interest of the country, etc…Appointing a committee or making inquiry is not the question here. If you file an affidavit, then we know where you stand.”
CJI Ramana went on to state that the Court would be constrained to pass an order in light of the Centre’s reluctance to file an affidavit.
“We had given fair opportunity to Centre to make a statement. Now they don’t want to file affidavit. So we will pass an order like that… what to do?”
On August 17, the Court had issued notice to the Centre in the pleas after the Union submitted that it was willing to give details regarding the controversy to an expert committee, but not make it public before the Court for fear of national security implications.
While doing so, it has question the Central government as to why a detailed affidavit could not be filed in response to the petitions filed before the Court.
