Pegasus probe panel submits interim report; hearing on February 23

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 21

Almost four months after the Supreme Court set up Justice RV Raveendran (retd) Committee to “expeditiously” probe into the Pegasus snooping scandal, the panel has submitted an interim report into alleged snooping on journalists, activists and politicians using the Israeli spyware.

A three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice of India will consider the report on February 23 when petitions seeking an independent probe into the scandal are scheduled to be taken up for hearing.

Noting that citizens need to be protected from violation of privacy, a Bench led the CJI had on October 27 set up an independent panel led by Justice Raveendran who is being assisted by former IPS officer Alok Joshi and Dr Sundeep Oberoi—Chairman, Sub Committee in (International Organisation of Standardisation/International Electro-Technical Commission/Joint Technical Committee) in overseeing the work of a three-member technical committee.

The members of the technical committee are Naveen Kumar Chaudhary, Professor (Cyber Security and Digital Forensics) and Dean, National Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar, Dr Prabaharan P, Professor (School of Engineering), Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri, Kerala, and Dr Ashwin Anil Gumaste, Institute Chair Associate Professor (Computer Science and Engineering), IIT, Bombay.

The state can’t get a free pass every time the spectre of national security was raised, the top court had said.

Asking the panel to expeditiously probe the issue and submit a report to it, the Bench had ordered that the matter be listed for hearing after eight weeks. However, the case has not come up for hearing so far. Later, it had restrained the Justice MB Lokur Commission appointed by the West Bengal Government from going ahead with its proceedings.

An international media consortium had reported that over 300 verified Indian mobile phone numbers were on the list of potential targets for surveillance using Pegasus spyware. It was also reported that phones of a former judge of the Supreme Court and its registrars were allegedly intercepted using the spyware.

Around 10 petitioners, including the Editors Guild of India and senior journalists N Ram and others, had moved the top court seeking an independent probe into the alleged snooping on eminent citizens, politicians and scribes by using Israeli firm NSO’s spyware Pegasus.

Advocate ML Sharma—one of the petitioners in the case – had last month sought suitable directions for registering a criminal case to probe into the Pegasus spyware purchase deal as alleged in a New York Times report.

The report alleged India bought the spyware as part of a USD 2-billion defence deal with Israel in 2017.

The Editors Guild of India had on January 30 urged the Justice Raveendran committee to take cognisance of the “startling claims” made in a New York Times report on the alleged purchase of the Pegasus spyware by India and seek responses from the government and the ministries that may have been involved in it.

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