If reports are correct, Pegasus snooping row very serious: SC
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to seek a response from the Union government on a clutch of petitions that demanded a court-monitored independent investigation into the alleged surveillance of Indian citizens using Israeli Pegasus spyware and to identify the entities responsible for this.
“Let somebody appear for the Union of India to accept notice in the matter,” a bench headed by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana said. The court fixed August 10 as the next date of hearing.
“You please serve copies of the petitions on the Union government. The matter has gotten complicated with too many petitions. Some have challenged the vires of the Information Technology law also. Let someone appear on behalf of the Centre...,” the bench, which also included justice Surya Kant, told the petitioners’ lawyers.
During the hour-long proceeding, the bench said the allegations were serious in nature if the reports are correct and posed three questions to the petitioners.
The first was why they came to the court after a gap of almost two years since the first reports on the use of Pegasus spyware were out way back in May 2019. This is a reference to Whatsapp revealing then that NSO’S software was used to send malware to more than 1,400 phones.
The second question was on whether any of the petitioners lodged a first information report or a criminal complaint against alleged illegal interception. The third related to the existence of any empirical evidence to corroborate the claims of the infractions.
The petitioners in the case (through independent petitions) are advocate ML Sharma; Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas; the Editors Guild of India (EGI); journalists N Ram and Sashi Kumar; journalists Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Rupesh Kumar Singh, Ipshita Shatakshi, SNM Abdi, Prem Shankar Jha; and civil rights activists Jagdeep S Chhokar and Narendra Mishra.
The row erupted on July 18 after an international investigative consortium reported that the phones of many Indian politicians, activists, businessmen and journalists were among the 50,000 that were potentially targeted by Pegasus, Israeli company NSO Group’s phone hacking software. NSO says its software is sold only to government customers. The Indian government has neither confirmed nor denied that it used Pegasus and has repeatedly ruled out any illegal surveillance in India.
“No doubt the allegations are serious in nature if the reports are correct. Except for the petition by the Editors Guild of India, most of the other petitions are based only on media reports. There have to be some verifiable reports etc before we entertain it,” the bench told senior lawyer Kapil Sibal, who was representing Ram and Kumar and led submissions on behalf of the clutch of petitions.
CJI Ramana asked Sibal: “These reports about the software came to light in May 2019... Why has this issue suddenly cropped up after two years?...”
As Sibal sought to point out that several details regarding the spyware and the extent of interception were not known earlier, the CJI asked: “Some people claim their phones were intercepted.. there are provisions to file criminal complaints for violation of the Telegraph Act. We don’t find anything in these petitions that they approached anybody for filing criminal complaints.”
Sibal then referred to Whatsapp’s suit against NSO in a California court in which the judge held that the surveillance using Pegasus was done at the behest of the government. “There is already a ruling now that this (technology) infiltrates into our lives without our knowing... It is an assault on privacy, human dignity, and the values of our republic, as it infiltrates into the backbone of our nation’s internet system.”
The CJI replied: “I have read it in one of the petitions that NSO clarified it sells software only to the vetted governments and then it is for the government to decide how to use it…”
Senior advocate Meenakshi Arora, appearing for Brittas, said that a question was raised in Parliament on the use of Pegasus in November 2019 when the then IT minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, denied any unauthorised interception. “If you know your phone was hacked, you have the remedy of filing an FIR. Why didn’t you do that?...,” said the bench.
Representing Chhokar, senior advocate Shyam Divan said: “For a private citizen to find out that a spyware has been turned against him by his own government is like a State waging a war against its citizens.” But the SC replied: “We want a clarification whether your client has filed any complaint or not.” Divan replied in the negative. Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for Abdi and Jha, said this was a matter of huge dimension where a foreign company is involved. Senior advocate Arvind Datar, representing Rupesh and Ipshita, argued that an investigation was the only way for a citizen to know the truth.
As advocate ML Sharma sought to argue his petition, the bench expressed displeasure at the manner he filed his plea. “Do you have anything except newspaper clippings in your petition? Do you want us to collect materials for you?” The bench also noted that Sharma made Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a party. “You’ve impleaded some individuals as parties... We can’t start issuing notices just like that to everyone,” it told the lawyer, who said he would be deleting the name of PM Modi as a party.