Petition in SC for SIT Inquiry into Pegasus Spyware as Bedlam Continues in Parliament

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, July 22: Amidst uproar from the opposition benches forcing adjournment of both house of Parliament for the day on Thursday, a petition has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking a court-monitored probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the reports of alleged snooping on politicians, activists and journalists using Israeli spyware Pegasus.

The petition, filed by advocate ML Sharma, said the Pegasus scandal was a matter of grave concern and a serious attack on the Indian democracy, judiciary and the country’s security and the “widespread and unaccountable” use of surveillance is “morally disfiguring.”

The Amnesty International, meanwhile, said it “categorically stands by Pegasus Project findings” and rejected “false rumours pushed on social media.” The clarification came as reports and social media posts, particularly emanating from Israel, suggested that the human rights body had denied saying that a leaked list of phone numbers was linked to the Israeli NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware.

Amnesty said it was putting out the statement “in response to false allegations on social media and inaccurate media stories” linked to the Pegasus Project. “Amnesty International categorically stands by the findings of the Pegasus Project, and that the data is irrefutably linked to potential targets of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. The false rumours being pushed on social media are intended to distract from the widespread unlawful targeting of journalists, activists and others that the Pegasus Project has revealed,” the statement said.

In Parliament, both houses were adjourned thrice amidst hoodlum created by the opposition benches over the use of the spyware. Opposition Trinamool Congress (TMC) MPs tore papers and flung them into the air, throwing the Rajya Sabha into bedlam as IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw read a statement on the alleged snooping using Pegasus.

TMC and other opposition party members rushed into the well of the House as Vaishnaw was called to make a statement over the issue. They shouted slogans and tore papers that appeared to be copies of the statement that the Minister was to make.

As papers were flung into the air, the Minister could not complete his statement and instead laid a copy of it on the table of the House.

Deputy Chairman Harivansh asked members to desist from unparliamentary behaviour, before adjourning the proceedings of the House for the rest of the day.

Opposition MPs had stalled the proceedings in the earlier part of the day as well, forcing two adjournments with not even officially listed papers being allowed to be laid.

They shouted slogans over alleged snooping and other issues.

Vaishnaw, however, had nothing new to add than what the minister had said on the opening day of the monsoon session on Monday denying any government involvement in the alleged “snoopgate.”

In his plea in the Supreme Court, the petitioner said, the “Privacy is not about the wish to hide, as is often asserted. It is about having a space of one’s own where our thoughts and being are not the instrument of someone else’s purposes. It is an essential component of dignity,” it said.

The plea said using of Pegasus was not just eavesdropping on conversations but could be used to access the entire digital imprint of one’s life as it renders helpless not just the owner of the phone hacked but everyone who is in contact with him.

The petition, which is likely to come up for hearing in the coming days, said the national security implications of the revelations were “enormous” as the “explosive growth” of surveillance technology vendors is a global security and human rights problem.

The PIL claimed that around 50,000 phone numbers were believed to be targeted by clients of the company, NSO Group, since 2016, that was leaked to major news outlets. “Pegasus is not just a surveillance tool. It is a cyber-weapon being unleashed on the Indian polity. Even if authorised (which is doubtful), the use of Pegasus poses a national security risk,” it said.

It sought a direction to frame an SIT under the supervision of the top court for investigation into the scandal and to prosecute all accused persons and ministers for buying of Pegasus and alleged snooping of citizens of India, including judges, opposition leaders, political persons, activists, advocates and others, for vested political interests since 2017.

The plea further sought to declare buying of Pegasus software for snooping illegal and unconstitutional.

The Amnesty International refuted the claims of some Israeli media reports which quoted Amnesty as saying that the list was of numbers of interest to NSO customers, or “the kind of people NSO clients might like to spy on.”

In its statement on Thursday, the “Amnesty and the investigative journalists and media outlets they work with have made clear from the outset in very clear language that this is a list of numbers marked as numbers of interest to NSO customers, meaning they are the kind of people NSO clients might like to spy on,” a statement cited in the report had said.

“The list contains the kind of people NSO’s clients would ordinarily be interested in spying on, but the list isn’t specifically a list of people who were spied on — though a very small subset of people on the list were indeed spied on,” the report quoted Amnesty as saying.

The statement was widely shared on social media, and reported on by other media houses, with supporters of the ruling BJP using it to discredit reports by The Wire, Washington Post and other media organisations that are part of the “Pegasus Project.”

Over the past few days, these reports have revealed, citing a leaked NSO database, that the numbers of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and other opposition politicians, poll strategist Prashant Kishor, two union ministers, Trinamool Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee and some 40 journalists were selected as potential targets of snooping. There are 300 numbers in India but no evidence that all numbers were hacked.

The government has denied any role in snooping. There is no substance to the reports of spying, said new IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in parliament on Monday, hours before he was revealed to be one of the potential targets.

On Wednesday, NSO — which claims it supplies its software only to “vetted” governments for control of terrorism and crime — reiterated that the list is “not a list of targets or potential targets of Pegasus. The numbers in the list are not related to NSO group. Any claim that a name in the list is necessarily related to a Pegasus target or Pegasus potential target is erroneous and false”.

Earlier, the Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had demanded a ban on Amnesty’s activities in India for its alleged role in the Pegasus controversy.

“Amnesty International is a partner in this investigation. Now we all know the role of Amnesty. They are encouraging left wing-terrorism in India…working overnight to defame the country,” he said, adding that the entire row was a “well-designed international conspiracy to defame Prime Minister Narendra Modi.” Sarma added that there was no evidence in the claims and none of the handsets of the people mentioned had undergone forensic examination.

Amnesty International, however, has stated that it carried out a technical and forensic analysis of many infected phones, and that they have observed instances of Pegasus infecting devices with a ‘zero-click’ operation, meaning that the victim does not need to interact with the malicious link.