Pegasus snooping scandal: SC to pass an interim order on petitions seeking probe

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 13

The Supreme Court on Monday said it will pass an interim order on petitions seeking a court-monitored SIT probe into alleged snooping on politicians, journalists and activists using Pegasus spyware.

“Hearing is concluded. Order is reserved,” a Bench led by CJI NV Ramana said after hearing arguments from various parties on the issue.

The development came after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said the government didn’t want to file any additional affidavit to publicly clarify if Pegasus spyware was used for snooping or not even as he maintained that the Centre had nothing to hide.

“You have repeatedly been saying that the Government doesn’t want to file an affidavit. We also don’t want any security issues to be put before us. You say that a committee will be formed and the report will be submitted... We have to look into the whole issue and pass an interim order,” the Bench told Mehta.

As Mehta insisted that the matter should be examined by a panel of experts and the report should be submitted to the top court and then the court could decide if the report would be put in the public domain or not, the Bench said such a decision would not take the issue anywhere.

“Mr Mehta, you have been beating around the bush and that’s not the question here,” the Bench told the Solicitor General.

Mehta said if there was a rethinking in the government on filing a detailed affidavit he would bring it to the court’s notice.

“We are reserving orders. We will pass an interim order. It will take two-three days. If you have some re-thinking on this, you can mention the matter before us,” the Bench told the Solicitor General.

On Mehta citing national security as a reason for not making it public,  the Bench said, “We are not interested to know about national interest issues… but we are only on the allegations that some software was used to snoop on certain citizens like lawyers etc. We wanted to know if it’s done to see and if it’s permissible under law.”

On behalf of various petitioners, senior advocates Kapil Sibal, AM Singhvi, Shyam Divan, Rakesh Dwivedi, Meenakshi Arora and Colin Gonsalves insisted that the government must disclose if the controversial software was used in India or not as it’s a question of violation of fundamental rights of citizens.

The top court had on August 17 asked the Centre to respond to petitions seeking an SIT probe into alleged snooping on politicians, journalists and activists using Pegasus spyware even as it clarified that it didn’t want the government to divulge anything which could adversely impact national security.

Thereafter, the Centre had filed a short affidavit saying that the pleas seeking an independent probe into the Pegasus snooping allegations are based on “conjectures and surmises or on other unsubstantiated media reports or incomplete or uncorroborated material”.

The Centre had said it was ready to set up an expert panel to dispel any wrong narrative spread by certain vested interests. It had also said its position had already been clarified in Parliament by Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.

On September 7, the court had deferred the hearing on the matter after the Centre sought time to decide if it would file a fresh affidavit in the matter.

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, have sought an independent probe into the alleged snooping on eminent citizens, politicians and scribes by using Israeli firm NSO’s spyware Pegasus.

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