New Delhi, Aug 17
The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to respond to the petitions seeking an SIT probe into alleged snooping on politicians, journalists and activists using the Pegasus spyware.
Issuing notice to the Centre, a Bench led by Chief Justice NV Ramana posted the matter for further hearing after 10 days.
The notice was issued after the Centre said it was willing to share details on the controversy with an expert committee but didn’t want to make such information public due to national security implications.
“We need to think how to go ahead with the matter,” the Bench said while issuing the notice.
The Bench, however, made it clear that it didn’t want the Centre to divulge information prejudicial to national security.
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 had also been 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.
During the hearing on Tuesday, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the Bench – which also included Justice Surya Kant and Justice Aniruddha Bose – that it didn’t want to file an additional affidavit in the matter as national security aspects were involved.
Mehta, however, said, the Centre was willing to place the necessary details before the expert committee it proposed to set up to examine the issue.
Maintaining that several kinds of softwares were used by agencies to check anti-national and terrorist activities, Mehta said no government would make public what software it’s using as terror networks could misuse such information to escape tracking.
The top court had on Monday sought to know if the Union Government wanted to file an additional affidavit clarifying if Pegasus spyware was used to snoop on politicians, journalists and activists even as it had said it could not compel the Centre to file such an affidavit.
