The Supreme Court on Friday decided to hear the ensuing week the petitions seeking an independent probe under its supervision into the alleged snooping on the citizens through Israeli Pegasus spyware.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal mentioned it before a Bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justice Surya Kant. He pressed for an urgent hearing into the petition filed on Tuesday by senior journalists N Ram (76) of The Hindu and Sasi Kumar (69) from Kerala who is founder of India's first regional satellite TV channel Asianet.
Noting that the Pegasus surveillance is making waves in India and across the world, he said: "Civil liberties of citizens, politicians belonging to the opposition parties, journalists and the court staff have been spied upon by installing the spyware in their mobiles."
CJI Ramana agreed to hear the matter the next week. On Sibal's request that it should not be on Tuesday or Wednesday when he is busy with other matters, the CJI said it would be kept in mind while listing the matter for hearing.
As per The Wire news portal, a total of 155 persons were potential targets of surveillance, including former Congress President Rahul Gandhi and his staff, activists and journalists. The government has flatly denied the opposition charge of having a hand in the surveillance.
Pegasus: Israel Launches probe
Israel has launched a probe into the allegations of wrongdoing against the NSO Group in the Pegasus snooping scandal, with authorities inspecting the cybersecurity company's offices over alleged abuses of its spyware by several government clients which have raised eyebrows the world over. Representatives of several bodies visited the office of NSO to assess the allegation, a spokesperson for Israel's Ministry of Defence said. The focus of the investigation is to examine whether the company acted in accordance with the permits and powers granted to it by the Export Control Division of the Ministry of Defence, the reports said. Amid reports of the use of spyware against French President Emmanuel Macron, Israeli Defence Minister, Benny Gantz, visited Paris on Wednesday and assured his French counterpart, Florence Parly that Jerusalem is taking the issue "seriously". NSO's chief executive, Shalev Hulio, had welcomed the move in an interview to Army Radio saying that he would "be very pleased if there were an investigation so that we'd be able to clear our name". Hulio claimed that there was an effort "to smear the whole Israeli cyber industry".
