13 weeks after SC order; Pegasus probe outcome still awaited

New Delhi, January 29

Thirteen weeks after the Supreme court set up Justice RV Raveendran (retd) Committee to “expeditiously” probe into the Pegasus snooping scandal, not much progress is visible even as ‘The New York Times’ reported that India bought the Israeli spyware in 2017 as part of a two-billion USD package for weapons.

Noting that citizens need to be protected from violation of privacy, a Bench led by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana had on October 27 set up an independent expert committee led by Justice Raveendran to look into allegations of snooping on journalists, activists, politicians, etc, using the Israeli Pegasus spyware.

Justice Raveendran is being assisted by former IPS officer Alok Joshi and Dr Sundeep Oberoi—Chairman, Sub Committee in (International Organisation of Standardisation/International Electro-Technical Commission/Joint Technical Committee) in overseeing the work of a three-member technical committee.

The members of the technical committee are Naveen Kumar Chaudhary, Professor (Cyber Security and Digital Forensics) and Dean, National Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar, Dr Prabaharan P, Professor (School of Engineering), Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri, Kerala, and Dr Ashwin Anil Gumaste, Institute Chair Associate Professor (Computer Science and Engineering), IIT, Bombay.

The state can’t get a free pass every time the spectre of national security was raised, the top court had said.

Asking the panel to expeditiously probe the issue and submit a report to it, the Bench had ordered that the matter be listed for hearing after eight weeks. However, the case has not come up for hearing so far. Later, it had restrained the Justice MB Lokur Commission appointed by the West Bengal Government from going ahead with its proceedings.

Not much is known about progress in the investigation, except that the technical committee appointed by the court had earlier this month invited information from people who suspected their phones were targeted.

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 was also 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, had moved the top court seeking an independent probe into the alleged snooping on eminent citizens, politicians and scribes by using Israeli firm NSO’s spyware Pegasus.