Senior journalists move SC for probe into Pegasus charges

Senior journalists N. Ram and Sashi Kumar have filed a plea in Supreme Court for an independent probe headed by a former or sitting top court judge into the Pegasus issue. The petitioners also sought direction from the Central Government to disclose if the Government or any of its agencies have obtained a license(s) for Pegasus spyware and/or used/employed it, either directly or indirectly, to conduct surveillance in any manner whatsoever.

The petitioners stated that such targeted surveillance using weapons-grade Pegasus software violates Articles 21, 19, and 14 of the Constitution of India as it breaches the right to privacy and the right to freedom of speech and expression. The present surveillance is also in complete derogation of the Telegraph Act, 1885 and the IT Act, 2000 and as such is completely illegal and a criminal act, it added

The plea further stated that such targeted surveillance violates the right to privacy, which is the constitutional core of human dignity and is protected under Article 21, 19, 14, 25, 28, the Preamble and Part III of the Constitution according to the landmark judgment of a nine-judge bench of this Court in K.S. Puttaswamy vs Union of India.

The right to privacy extends to the use and control over one’s mobile phone including but not limited to both oral conversations and messages, and any interception by means of tapping/hacking are a breach of privacy and an infraction of Article 21 of the Constitution, the plea said. The conscious targeting of politically engaged persons such as journalists, doctors, lawyers, civil society activists, government ministers, opposition politicians and constitutional functionaries for surveillance seriously compromises the effective exercise of the fundamental right to free speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a), the plea added.

The plea also stated that the government response does not provide any clarity whatsoever on how such mass surveillance using military-grade software was carried out with such impunity. This is clearly illegal and a serious abridgement of fundamental rights, not to mention a criminal offence, it further said. The petitioners alleged that no investigation into these extremely serious allegations has been initiated by the respondents, despite the extremely grave ramifications of such a targeted attack using weapons-grade spyware. It is essential to initiate a thorough, independent and effective investigation to analyse the source, method and actors involved in the Pegasus spyware attack, which has had a direct and demonstrable impact on the exercise of critical fundamental rights under Articles 14, 19, and 21 across the territory of India, it added.