Pegasus Snooping Row: Former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha Moves Supreme Court Seeking Court Monitored Probe

In another development in the Pegasus spyware controversy, former Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha has moved the Supreme Court seeking a court monitored probe to investigate and monitor the illegal use of the Pegasus Spyware.

The writ petition has sought directions for creation of an oversight mechanism to deal with any surveillance related request made by and to any Ministry or governmental agency.

The plea filed through Advocates Abhimanyu Tiwari and Ashray Chopra has sought directions similar to its previous judgment in case of People's Union of Civil Liberties v. Union of India and Ors. (where telephonic conversations were held to be an important facet of a modern man's private life) till proper regulations are brought in by the Central Government to safeguard the right to privacy of individuals.

The petitioner, a long-time parliamentarian, has argued that such mass surveillance using a military- grade spyware abridges several Fundamental Rights and is a deliberate attempt to infiltrate, attack and destabilise independent institutions that act as critical pillars of our democratic set-up.

Further, the petitioner has also argued that the Government has not categorically ruled out obtaining Pegasus licenses to conduct surveillance, and have taken no steps to ensure a credible and independent investigation into these extremely serious allegations.

The plea has stated that the Pegasus spyware has been used to snoop and spy on numerous journalists across the country which is a direct attack on the fourth pillar of the democracy infringing the fundamental right to freedom of the press and seriously abridges the right to know.

"The Respondent Government has used a certified military foreign origin spyware against its own citizens. The citizens of the country have a right to know whether their personal information was being used by foreign or Indian agencies under the oversight of the Respondent Government." the plea reads.

To support his case, the petitioner has also cited Supreme Court's order in the case of Kharak Singh v. The State of U.P where while striking down a surveillance law the Court had held that the right to privacy as a fundamental right enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution.

According to the petitioner, this sort of surveillance, if continued, is also a violation of an individual's freedom of expression and is likely to have a chilling effect on free speech which will be detrimental to the Fundamental Rights enshrined under Article 19 and Article 21, of the Constitution of India.

Several petitions have already been filed before the Top Court seeking probe into the Pegasus snooping controversy.A Bench led by CJI Ramana on Thursday directed all the petitioners to serve copies of their petitions on the Government of India.

The petitions were filed by Advocate ML Sharma, journalists N Ram and Sashi Kumar, CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas, five pegasus targets( Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, SNM Abdi, Prem Shankar Jha, Rupesh Kumar Singh and Ipsa Shataksi), social activist Jagdeep Chhokkar, Narendra Kumar Mishra and the Editors Guild of India.

The Pegasus controversy erupted on July 18 after The Wire and several other international publications published reports about the mobile numbers which were potential targets of the spyware service given by NSO company to various governments, including India. 40 Indian journalists, political leaders like Rahul Gandhi, election strategist Prashant Kishore, former ECI member Ashok Lavassa etc are reported to be in the list of targets, as per The Wire.

According to a report of The Wire, the woman staffer who raised the sexual harassment allegations against the former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and some of her family members were listed as the potential targets of Pegasus snooping

The Wire also reported that a mobile number which was associated with Justice Arun Mishra at one point of time was in the list of potential targets of snooping through the Isreali spyware Pegasus,. It was also reported that mobile numbers of two officials of the Supreme Court registry were in the list.

Today, the Supreme Court had heard nine petitions on the Pegasus issues. A bench headed by the Chief Justice of India listed all the matters on August 10, after asking the parties to serve copies to the Government of India. During the hearing, the bench observed that the allegations are serious, if the reports are true, and commented that the truth has to come out. The bench also asked why the aggrieved parties have not filed FIRs.

For elaborate report of the Pegasus hearing, read this report.