SC: Snooping charge serious
Allegations serious, if media reports on Pegasus are true, says Supreme Court
New Delhi: The Supreme Court said the allegations of Pegasus-related snooping are serious if reports on it are correct and asked the petitioners to serve the copies of the pleas for probe to the Centre.
The Supreme Court on Thursday said that allegations in media reports relating to Pegasus spyware snooping on media persons, politicians, eminent people and even judges are serious in nature if true, but asked why none of the people whose phones were hacked have filed FIRs before approaching the top court.
In their response, the petitioners told the court that Pegasus spyware technology can’t be used in India unless it is purchased by the government and said that when the matter came to light, the Centre should have replied on its own and ordered an inquiry.
In the course of the hearing, Chief Justice N.V. Ramana, heading a bench also comprising Justice Surya Kant, noted that some of the people who have moved the court are “knowledgeable and resourceful”, and said, “The allegations are serious in nature if reports in the media are correct. Majority of petitions rely on foreign newspapers, but is there any verifiable material for us to order an inquiry? Shouldn’t we look into it?”
Observing that some of the petitioners who have knocked the doors of the top court are “knowledgeable and resourceful”, Chief Justice Ramana said that they should have “put in more hard work to put more material” before the court to back their prayer for a probe.
Without issuing a formal notice, the court asked the nine petitioners to serve the copies of their respective petitions to the government lawyer and ordered the listing of the matter on August 10 for hearing.
The nine petitioners who have approached the top court seeking probe into the Pegasus spyware snooping include eminent media persons N. Ram, founder of Asianet Sashi Kumar, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, S.N.M. Abdi, Prem Shankar Jha, Rupesh Kumar Singh and Ipsa Shatakshi, Editors Guild of India, Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas, and PIL petitioner lawyer M.L.
Sharma. Ramana hammered the point as to why none of the aggrieved people complaining that their phones were hacked using Pegasus spyware have filed criminal complaints with police and what was done in the past two years when matter surfaced in 2019.
“My question is, if you know the phone is hacked, then why wasn't an FIR lodged? That is the only question,” CJI Ramana said in the course of the hearing.
Addressing the poser from the bench, senior lawyer Kapil Sibal appearing for N. Ram said that they came to know about the snooping using Israeli spyware from Washington Post and other media outfits. “The extent of surveillance was not known to us. How do we file this petition” without the information that is now available,
Mr Sibal said, further pointing out that media reports said that even the mobile phones of the registrar of the Supreme Court and those of some members of the judiciary were also compromised.
Senior lawyer Shyam Divan appearing for Jagdeep Chhokar of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) candidly told the court that he has not filed a criminal complaint as a matter of such magnitude requires independent probe at the highest level. He said that a fact-finding committee could be headed by a highest-level bureaucrat, preferably the Cabinet Secretary.
Besides Mr Sibal and Mr Divan, the court was addressed by senior lawyers Arvind Datar, Rakesh Dwivedi and Meenakshi Arora.k
WITHOUT ISSUING a formal notice, the court asked the nine petitioners to serve the copies of their respective petitions to the government lawyer and ordered the listing of the matter on August 10 for hearing.