The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear next week the plea of senior journalists N, Ram and Sashi Kumar seeking a court-monitored SIT inquiry headed by a sitting or retired judge of the apex court to investigate into the reports of the government using Israeli software Pegasus to spy on politicians, activists, and journalists.
A Bench led by Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana said that the petition would be heard next week after senior Congress leaders and senior advocates Kapil Sibal and A.M. Singhvi mentioned before it.
Sibal said that civil liberties of citizens, politicians belonging to Opposition parties, journalists, court staff have been put under surveillance. As it is, the issue is making waves in India and world over and requires an urgent hearing, he said
N. Ram and Sashi Kumar on Tuesday had filed a plea in Supreme Court for an independent probe headed by a former or sitting top court judge into Pegasus issue.
The petitioners also sought direction to the Centre to disclose if the government or any of its agencies have obtained licence(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 Article 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 Information Technology 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 v. 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 is 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 abridgment of fundamental rights, not to mention a criminal offence, the plea 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.