Fresh plea filed in Supreme Court on Pegasus spyware

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 30

Advocate ML Sharma, one of the petitioners in the Pegasus case, has filed a fresh plea urging the Supreme Court to issue suitable directions for registering a criminal case to probe into the Pegasus spyware purchase deal as alleged in a New York Times report.

Editorial: Pegasus row: Govt needs to come clean on damning revelations

Sharma has requested the top court to take cognisance of the New York Times report on the alleged 2017 defence deal with Israel and order a probe into the alleged misuse of public funds in the interest of justice.

Also read: Editors Guild writes to SC panel on Pegasus row

Budget session from today, Oppn ups ante

• Pegasus spyware issue is set to storm the Budget session of Parliament starting Monday
• Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury writes to Speaker seeking privilege motion against IT Minister

Asking the panel to expeditiously probe the issue and submit a report to it, a Bench led by CJI NV Ramana had on October 27 last year ordered that the matter be listed for hearing after eight weeks. However, the case has not come up for hearing so far.

The media report claiming India bought Pegasus spyware as part of a $2-billion defence deal with Israel in 2017 has triggered a major controversy with the Opposition alleging that the government indulged in illegal snooping that amounted to “treason”.

The deal was not approved by Parliament and, therefore, needed to be cancelled and money be recovered, Sharma submitted.

On October 27 last year, the SC had appointed a three-member panel of cyber experts to probe the alleged use of Pegasus for surveillance of certain people in India, saying that the state cannot get a “free pass” every time the spectre of national security is raised.

‘Probe 2017 deal’

Petition claims $2 bn defence deal with Israel in 2017 was not approved by Parliament

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