Petition filed in SC seeking probe into Pegasus issue, FIR against concerned officers
India Today
A petition was filed before the Supreme Court seeking an FIR against officers involved in the Pegasus espionage row.
A fresh plea has been filed in the Supreme Court on the alleged use of Israeli spyware Pegasus, seeking that the court take cognisance of a New York Times report on it and order a probe into the 2017 defence deal with Israel.
Advocate ML Sharma moved the Supreme court over the Pegasus issue and demanded that an FIR should be registered against the concerned officer or authority for the transaction and an investigation should be initiated.
The application cited a New York Times report that said the Indian government had purchased Pegasus in 2017 as part of a $2 billion package for weapons, including missile systems.
The NYT, in a report titled ‘The Battle for the World’s Most Powerful Cyberweapon’, said the Israeli firm NSO Group had for nearly a decade been “selling its surveillance software on a subscription basis to law-enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world, promising that it could do what no one else -- not a private company, not even a state intelligence service -- could do: consistently and reliably crack the encrypted communications of any iPhone or Android smartphone.”
The Supreme Court has already stayed the Justice Lokur Commission set up by the West Bengal government to probe the Pegasus case. Lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi had said that the commission is a statutory body and the government cannot issue orders to it.
Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana asked the Lokur Commission to issue a notice to the Commission of Inquiry, prohibiting any kind of investigation by the Lokur Commission.
NV Ramana also told West Bengal's lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi, " You said that you will not do anything in the investigation work now."
