SC: Hearing on Pegasus Row Adjourned till Monday, Petitioners told to Stay Away from Social Media Debates

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Aug 10: The Supreme Court on Tuesday adjourned the further hearing on the Pegasus spyware issue till August 16 after the Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana mildly chided the petitioners asking them to keep faith in the apex court and refrain from engaging in “parallel proceedings and debates” on social media platforms and other outlets while the case was sub-judice.

The Chief Justice, heading a three-judge Bench, said if they had anything to say, they should put it down in affidavits and file them in the court, where it would be debated.

“There should be some discipline… If they want to say something on Twitter or Facebook, it is up to them… But we expect them, having come here [to the Supreme Court], to put their faith in the court,” Chief Justice Ramana observed.

He stressed that questions from the Bench during court hearings should not be misconstrued.

Ramana said: “Nobody should cross the limit and all will be given the opportunity in the case. We are not against debates but when the matter is in court, it should be deliberated here.” It also asked parties to answer the queries through proper debate in court and not outside.

“We ask questions to all of you… They may sometimes cause inconvenience to you… You may not like it, but that is the process of the court…. Counsel should be responsible. If they want anything, they should bring it to the court,” Chief Justice Ramana addressed lawyers including senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who has been leading the petitioner side.

Sibal, who represented one of the petitioners, senior journalists N Ram and Sashi Kumar, agreed with the Chief Justice. He said his client, Ram, was “trolled” on social media after the last hearing. Sibal said trolls had latched onto an oral reference from the Bench. The court had, in the previous hearing, mentioned whether Ram’s petition had “wrongly” ascribed to a California court a statement that Pegasus targeted Indian journalists.

But a careful reading of Ram’s petition had found no such allusions regarding the California court. In fact, Ram’s petition merely mentioned that the U.S. court was dealing with a suit filed by WhatsApp against NSO Group “for targeting the mobile phones of around 1,400 users with malware”.

“It was blown out of proportion… The man was trolled,” Sibal said. Chief Justice Ramana said he had made it clear that he himself was not sure whether he had read it in Ram’s petition or in some other plea.

The bench said, “This is what we are saying. We ask questions from parties. We take both parties to task. The matter should be deliberated here and it should not be debated on social media and websites. Parties should have faith in the system.”

The hearing was adjourned till Monday after the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for the government, sought more time to go through the multiple petitions. He asked for a short adjournment, probably till Friday. However, the CJI said he had a personal inconvenience on Friday and was not sitting. The Bench listed the case for hearing on Monday.

Senior advocate C.U. Singh asked the court to issue formal notice to the government. “I will take a call on Monday,” Chief Justice Ramana assured.

The court has, in the last hearing, said that “truth has to come out” in the Pegasus snooping case. The court had said that allegations of the government using Israel-based technology to spy on civilians, journalists, Ministers, parliamentarians, activists were “no doubt serious” provided the news reports were true.

The previous hearing had witnessed a barrage of questions from the Bench, including if there was any “verifiable material” other than foreign newspaper reports to support a judicial order for an inquiry into the Pegasus allegations. The Chief Justice had also queried why the petitioners had to wait so long when doubts about surveillance were first raised over two years ago. The court had asked why the “targets” did not take criminal action. “If you knew your phone was hacked, why did you not file a criminal complaint,” Chief Justice had asked.

Seeking an independent inquiry at the highest level, Sibal had described Pegasus to the court as a “rogue technology”.

“It is entirely illegal. It infiltrates our lives without our knowledge through our phones… It hears, it watches, it surveys our every movement. It destroys the constitutional values of our Republic like privacy and individual dignity. Moreover, it destroys our national Internet backbone and is a threat to our national security,” Sibal had submitted.

The petitioners said the government should come clean and categorically state before the court whether it had used the Pegasus technology or not.

There are three petitions before the court in the matter, one filed by senior journalists N Ram and Sashi Kumar, another by advocate M L Sharma and a third one by CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas. Ram and Kumar have sought a probe by a sitting or former judge of the SC into the allegations.

The duo said in their plea that such “targeted surveillance” using a “military-grade spyware” is a “grossly disproportionate invasion of the right to privacy”. The petition by Brittas has sought a probe into the revelations in the media on the alleged spying and said the spyware allegations give two inferences – that it was done by the Indian government or by a foreign agency.

The Pegasus scandal involves allegations that an Indian client of the Israeli spyware used it to conduct illegal surveillance on opposition leaders, journalists and others. Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, poll strategist Prashant Kishor, businessman Anil Ambani and others are on the alleged list of targets.

A furious opposition has cornered the government in Parliament on this issue, demanding a detailed discussion in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and investigation into the allegations. The government has insisted that no illegal surveillance has been conducted and has, so far, refused to order a probe; the Bengal government has, however, ordered a judicial inquiry.

While the NSO group, the maker of the Pegasus spyware, has said it was not connected with the leaked databases, the defence ministry on Monday washed its hands off the controversy claiming that the Indian defence ministry had no transaction with the NSO. The NSO group had earlier maintained that it did business only with the governments or the government-approved agencies but the Indian government has maintained that Pegasus row was a “non-issue” and has refused to budge to the opposition demand for inquiry.

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