Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said he is happy that the Supreme Court has accepted to look into the Pegasus issue and has appointed a cyber expert panel to probe the snooping allegations. The Wayanad MP added that his party will again raise the issue in Parliament.
"We are happy that Supreme Court has accepted to look into the Pegasus issue. We will raise this issue again in Parliament. We will try to have a debate in Parliament. I am sure the BJP will not like to have a debate on this," Gandhi said.
"Pegasus was used against CMs, former PMs, BJP's ministers among others. Was PM & HM getting the data obtained through use of Pegasus? If the data of phone tapping of Election Commission, CEC & Opposition leaders are going to PM, then it's a criminal act," he added.
The former Congress chief further said the use of the Israeli spyware is an "attempt to crush Indian democracy", adding he is sure that the truth will come out.
"During last Parliament session, we raised Pegasus issue. Today, SC has given it opinion & supported what we were saying. We were asking 3 questions -who authorised Pegasus?, who was it used against and did any other country have access to information of our people," Gandhi said.
"Pegasus is an attempt to crush Indian democracy. It is a big step that the Supreme Court has said that they will look into this matter. I am confident that we will get truth out of this," he added.
Earlier in the day, the apex court appointed a three-member panel of cyber experts to probe the alleged use of Pegasus for surveillance of various people in India including politicians, court staff, journalists and social activists.
Stating that "justice must not only be done, but also be seen to be done," the top court rejected the Centre's plea to allow it to appoint an expert committee to investigate the allegations on the grounds that such a course of action would violate the settled judicial principle against bias.
The top court urged its former judge Justice R V Raveendran to oversee the functioning of the three member panel and sought a report expeditiously from the committee.
The apex court said that former IPS officer Alok Joshi and Sundeep Oberoi -- Chairman, Sub Committee in (International Organisation of Standardisation/ International Electro-Technical Commission/Joint Technical Committee) -- will assist Justice Raveendran to oversee the task to the committee.
(With PTI inputs)
