Pegasus -Serious Allegations If Reports Are True; Truth Has To Come Out : Supreme Court

Observing that the allegations are serious if the reports of Pegasus surveillance are true, the Supreme Court on Thursday asked the lawyers appearing in nine petitions seeking probe into the Pegasus snooping controversy to serve copies of their petitions on the Government of India. The matter has been listed for further hearing next Tuesday."No doubt, the allegations are serious, if the reports are true", the Chief Justice of India NV Ramana remarked during the hearing."Truth has to come out, that's a different story. We don't know whose names are there", he added.Courtroom ExchangeWhen the matter was taken, the CJI remarked at the outset that the "allegations are serious, if the reports are true". "Before going into all that, we have certain questions. No doubt, the allegations are serious, if the reports are true".However, the CJI raised two queries repeatedly :1. Why the individually aggrieved petitioners have not filed FIRs?2. Why the petitions are filed now though Pegasus issue surfaced in 2019?.CJI also remarked that the petitions are based on newspaper reports and the petitioners could have put in more effort to collect verifiable materials, as most of them are knowledgeable and resourceful journalists and activists. Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for journalists N Ram and Sashi Kumar, replied that the extent of the Pegasus attack was only known now after the reports of Citizen Lab. And, individuals have no means to access the materials as Pegasus sells its services only to the Governments. In this regard, he referred to the proceedings instituted by Whatsapp against NSO technologies, the Israeli company which has developed Pegasus, to state that only governments can purchase the spyware services."Governments can also mean state government", the CJI observed then.Sibal replied that he is not aware of that and given the scale of allegations, a comprehensive enquiry is needed.Sibal also referred to "sensitive reports" regarding the inclusion of member of judiciary, and officials of the Court in the potential list of Pegasus targets. He added that the numbers of lawyers, public figures, constitutional authorities, activists etc are included in the list, as if they were all terrorists."Truth has to come out, that's a different story. We don't know whose names are there", CJI then said.Sibal : This morning we found out something sensitive.CJI : What?Sibal : Registrars serving in this court. An old number of a member of judiciary is also mentioned. I don't want to enter into that.#SupremeCourt #PegausSpyware— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) August 5, 2021 Senior Advocate CU Singh submitted that hat the names of the persons targeted were not known in 2019. The names were known after a forensic analysis was done by an international agency.Senior Advocate Meenakshi Arora, appearing for CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP John Britttas, referred to a statement made by the former IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in Lok Sabha on the Pegasus issue that "to the best of his knowledge, there was no unauthorized interception"."If you have said in 2019 that you have not done, and now it is known that it has been done, there is a need to investigate", Arora submitted."If you know that your phone is hacked, why are you not filing an FIR?", CJI then asked.Foreign governments have launched investigation : DivanSenior Advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for activist Jagdeep Chhokkar who is reported to be a Pegasus target, told the bench the Governments of USA and France have launched investigation into Pegasus reports and have sought the responses of Israel government. He said that these are not "some media reports" and are extensive investigative reports backed by forensic examinations."For a private citizen to find out that a spyware has been turned on him by the govt, it is something per se unconstitutional. It constitutes a war by the government on the citizen", Divan argued.Given the dimensions of the case, a high level investigation by an independent committee is needed. Divan further said that response must be given by a high level bureaucrat who has access to different ministries, some one like a Cabinet Secretary. "We don't want a situation here where some individual ministry says I don't know anything based on my documental records", Divan urged.No provision for filing FIR: Datar Senior Advocate Arvind Datar, appearing for journalists Rupesh Kumar Singh and Ipsa Shataski, who were in the Pegasus targets list, submitted that as per Section 43 of the IT Act, one can file suit for damages. However, it is not known as to who has hacked the phones. Therefore, civil remedy is useless He added, "The criminal provision in IT Act Section 66E refers to infringement of privacy in relation to bodily parts. That is not applicable here. Therefore, there is no provision for filing FIR." Datar further submitted, "There are two parts in the case. There are rights in rem. And there are individual cases. As far as individual...

Pegasus -Serious Allegations If Reports Are True; Truth Has To Come Out : Supreme Court

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