Breaking; Apex Court to Set Up Technical Expert Panel to Probe Pegasus Snooping Row, Formal Order Next Week

(Judicial Quest News Network)

The Apex Court on Thursday said it will announce its decision next week on the pleas seeking an independent probe into the Pegasus snooping row.

The Court is scheduled to announce its interim order next week on the issue.

The CJI NV Ramana told in the open court that the Apex Court is proposing to constitute an expert committee to probe the Pegasus surveillance scandal.

However, he also informed that some of the experts had expressed their inability to become part of the committee due to personal reasons which has led to the delay by the top court in passing an order in this regard

The Supreme Court had reserved its interim order in the matter on September 13.

The Centre had refused to file an Affidavit citing national security on pleas seeking independent probe into the snooping row.

The Surveillance allegations pertain to a leaked list, featuring more than 50,000 phone numbers, that was accessed by Paris-based media non-profit Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International. As part of the Pegasus Project the organisations had shared the list with 17 news outlets.

According to the wire which focused on the Indian portion of the list the numbers of those in the database include over 40 journalists, three major opposition figures, one constitutional authority, two serving ministers in the Narendra Modi government, current and former heads and officials of security organisations and scores of businesses.

The Chief Justice said that the court will soon finalise on the members of the panel.

This was after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, told the court that the central government’s stand on whether Pegasus was used for spying “cannot be a subject matter of an affidavit or debate in court or public discourse”.

Mehta had said that filing an affidavit on whether the spyware was used will “not serve national interest” the solicitor general had suggested that a committee of independent domain experts could instead look into the allegations.

 The spyware is licensed to government around the world by Israeli Cyber intelligence company NSO GROUP. The company insists that it licenses its software only to vetted governments with good human rights record and that Pegasus in intended to target criminals.

The CJI NV Ramana on Thursday said that the court will pass the orders in the case next week.

 The CJI told this orally to Senior Advocate Chander Uday Singh, who is appearing in one of the Pegasus petitions, while the later was making a mention another matter.

The CJI said that the court wanted to pass orders this week.

The Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, who is the lead counsel for the petitioners in the case.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the bench that the matter was related to national security, and hence cannot be made a subject matter of judicial debate or public discourse. He said that the government cannot reveal on affidavit whether it has used any particular software for security purposes, as it will alert terror groups. However, taking note of the seriousness of the allegations, the Centre has agreed to constitute a technical committee to examine the issue, and the said committee will submit a report to the Court, the SG added.

“We are not interested in knowing matters related to security or defence. We are only concerned to know whether Govt has used any method other than admissible under law “. Justice Surya Kant Said.

“We are again reiterating we are not interested in knowing matters related to security or defence. We are only concerned, as my brother said, we have journalists, activists, etc before us…to know whether Govt has used any method other than admissible under law.” CJI NV Ramana asked.

Several petitioners who were represented by Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal, Shyam Divan, Meenakhi Arora, Rakesh Dwivedi. Dinesh Dwivedi, CU Singh-Submitted that a committee constituted by the Centre cannot be expected to function in a fair and unbiased manner.

The petitioners submitted that the Israeli Firm NSO which developed Pegasus, sells its services only to governments, and when the Government of India was under a cloud of suspicion, it cannot be expected to conduct a fair probe.

The petitions have been filed by several people including Advocate ML Sharma, Journalists N ram and Sashi Kumar, CPI(M)Rajya Sabha MP John Britta, five Pegasus targets (Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, SNM Abedi,Prem Shanker Jha, Rupesh Kumar Singh and Ispa Shatask). Social activist jagdeep Chhokkar, Narendra Kumar Mishra and the Editors Guild of India