John Brittas, a Rajya Sabha member, has petitioned the Supreme Court for a court-monitored investigation into allegations that Israeli spyware Pegasus was used to eavesdrop on activists, politicians, journalists, and constitutional authorities.
Pegasus malware was allegedly used to conduct spying on around 300 Indians, including ministers, political leaders, government employees, and journalists, according to media sources.
Brittas, who has filed a public interest lawsuit in the Supreme Court, claims that recent accusations of spying have alarmed a substantial portion of India’s population, and that surveillance will stifle free speech and expression.
Brittas, who is a member of the CPI-M, said in a statement on Sunday that, despite the severe nature of the claims, the central government has “made merely an optimistic hope that the time-tested mechanisms in our nation are well-established to guarantee that unlawful monitoring does not occur.”
“Therefore, the queries were raised in the Indian Parliament with respect to this leakage. But the government has neither denied nor admitted the snooping by the spyware,” he said.
In the midst of a controversy over the Pegasus malware, the administration said that unlawful eavesdropping was impossible due to checks and balances in the country’s laws, and that attempts were being made to defame Indian democracy.
On July 19, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw informed the Lok Sabha that media stories about suspected eavesdropping released the day before the commencement of Parliament’s Monsoon Session “cannot be a coincidence,” and that the sensationalism had “no basis.”
The minister, however, would not say if the Indian government was employing Pegasus spyware.
On Sunday, Brittas stated that the accusations lead to one of two conclusions: either the government or a foreign agency snooped.
It was done in an unapproved way if it was done by the government. If snooping was carried out by a foreign agency, Brittas explained, it was an act of external aggression that needed to be dealt with seriously.
The technology’s owner, the NSO, has also “clearly rubbished the accusations in the study,” according to the minister.
According to the minister’s speech to the Lok Sabha on July 19, the NSO stated that the list of nations listed utilising Pegasus in the report was inaccurate, and that many of the countries identified were not even clients of the firm.
