Pegasus Spyware: Supreme Court Urged To Take Cognisance Of New York Times Report Alleging Pegasus Purchase By Indian Government

Sharma, who is also one of the petitioners in the Pegasus case before the Supreme Court, has filed an application seeking directions to register F.I.R for investigation to recover public money paid for the impugned deal.

He has also sought a direction to prosecute concerned persons including Prime Minister Nagendra Modi.

The application has stated that the New York Times published a detailed report on 29th January 2022, declaring that in July 2017 the Indian government bought Israeli spyware Pegasus as part of a larger arms deal in 2017, according to an investigative report by the New York Times.

The applicant has argued that the Government of India blocked the said news of New York Times but he has a copy of You-tube reporting the said report, and the Indian news papers also published the said report in part substance.

According to the petitioner, the said deal was not placed in the house for approval and breach of trust for personal political interest by the prime minister and BJP party is illegal, attracts criminal breach of trust for embezzling of public money which is liable to be cancelled and recovered. This has to be coupled with further action of prosecution of the all concerned persons as constitution does not allow impugned deal without nod of the parliament.

The Supreme Court on 23rd October 2021 had ordered the constitution of an independent expert committee to look into the allegations of widespread and targeted surveillance of politicians, journalists, activist etc using the Pegasus spyware.

The Court has asked the committee to investigate the matter expeditiously directing the matter to be listed after 8 weeks.

On September 13 a bench comprising CJI NV Ramana, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Hima Kohli had eserved interim order in the Pegasus case, after the Central Government expressed unwillingness to file an affidavit stating whether it has used the Pegasus spyware or not.

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.

Several petitions were thereafter filed before the Top Court seeking an independent probe into the matter, notice whereupon is yet to be issued. However, the Top Court has expressed concern over the alleged incident, saying that no doubt, the allegations are serious, if the reports are true. "Truth has to come out, that's a different story. We don't know whose names are there", CJI NV Ramana said.

The petitions have been filed by several people including 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.

Case Title : Manohar Lal Sharma versus Union of India