The Supreme Court has given its verdict on the petitions for investigation of the Pegasus espionage case. The court has constituted an expert committee to investigate the matter, which will work under the chairmanship of retired Supreme Court Justice RV Raveendran. This committee has been asked to expeditiously investigate the allegations related to Pegasus and submit a report. Now after 8 weeks, the matter will be heard again.
Demand for the formation of government panel rejected
The Supreme Court has rejected the application in which the government had sought to form its expert panel. The court has said that the court cannot remain a mute spectator by the government merely talking about national security. The government cannot be given exemption every time it raises the issue of national security. The court made this comment because the central government had refused to give more details in the affidavit citing national security.
The court said that if the government had clarified the situation, then our burden would have been lighter.
The court has also said that the privacy of every citizen of the country should be protected. The limited affidavit given by the Center in this matter is not clear and cannot be sufficient. We have given the government ample opportunity to give details, but despite repeated requests, it is not clear in the affidavit that what action has been taken so far. Had they clarified, our burden would have been lessened.
Former IPS also included in the court's panel
Former IPS officer Alok Joshi and International Organization of Standardization Sub-Committee Chairman Dr. Sandeep Oberoi have also been included in the 3-member investigation committee of the Pegasus case. Along with this, a three-member technical committee has also been formed. The names of Dr. Naveen Kumar Choudhary, Professor of Cyber Security and Digital Forensics, Dr. Prabhakaran P, Professor of Engineering, and Dr. Ashwin Anil Gumaste, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering.
Let us tell you that many journalists and activists had filed applications in the Pegasus case. They demanded that the investigation should be conducted under the supervision of the Supreme Court judge. The petitioners also said that spying with military-grade spyware is a violation of the right to privacy. Hacking the phones of journalists, doctors, lawyers, activists, ministers, and leaders of opposition parties is a compromise on the right to freedom of speech.
Court's important comments
In this case, the task of forming a committee was like a mountain. We left it to the discretion of the retired judge to seek the help of an expert who is an expert in cyber privacy.
The right to privacy and freedom of speech is being affected, it should be investigated. All citizens are affected by such allegations.
Privacy is not just an issue of journalists and politicians but it is a matter of right of every individual. All decisions should be following the Constitution.
The allegations leveled by other countries and the involvement of foreign parties have been taken seriously.
It may be that some foreign authority, agency, or private entity has been involved in putting the citizens of the country under surveillance.
It is alleged that the central or state governments want to violate the rights of citizens.
What is the Pegasus controversy?
An international group of investigative journalists claims that Pegasus, the spy software of the Israeli company NSO, spied 50,000 people in 10 countries. In India also 300 names have come up, whose phones were monitored. These include ministers in the government, leaders of the opposition, journalists, lawyers, judges, businessmen, officers, scientists, and activists.
How does Pegasus work?
According to cyber security research group Citizen Lab, hackers use different methods to install Pegasus on a device. One way is to send an "exploit link" via message to the target device. As soon as the user clicks on this link, Pegasus is automatically installed on the phone.
In 2019, when Pegasus was installed on devices via WhatsApp, hackers took a different approach. At that time hackers took advantage of a bug in the video call feature of WhatsApp. The hackers made video calls on the target phone through a fake WhatsApp account. During this time, Pegasus was installed on the phone through a code.
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