The government today said it’s “nothing to cover from the court” while the Supreme Court was hearing petitions seeking a radical investigation into the Pegasus spyware scandal. The court, issuing notice to the centre, said the govt should reply on allegations that the Israeli spyware was used on individual phones, adding it’ll choose forming a committee to research the allegations only after getting the centre’s response.
“We don’t want national security to be compromised, but the phones of people were attacked as per their claims. Only a competent authority can respond there on,” Justice Surya Kant said.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the centre, argued against putting out facts of the Pegasus case within the property right citing national security.
“All petitions kindle one thing – Supreme Court inquiry. Yesterday, they asked that they solely want the govt to answer whether Pegasus was used. This software is purchased by all countries. But which software was used or not is rarely divulged by any country for national security reasons,” the government’s top lawyer said.
“We don’t have anything to cover from the court. We are going to place everything before the court mandated committee that may be founded. But it can not be put out into public through affidavits. Tomorrow, web portals will say military resources were used illegally. Allow us to have a committee and that we will place all information before it,” Mr Mehta said.
The Supreme Court agreed it’ll not ask to disclose sensitive information to the general public. “…We don’t want to compromise with security of nation or interfere with Defence Ministry protocols. We are going to not ask you to disclose… But the difficulty is straightforward. Individuals here are submitting that interception of their phones happened and this will be done by permission of competent authority. So what’s the matter with the competent authority to file an affidavit before us, without compromising national security and defence issues?” the Supreme Court said.
The matter are heard next after 10 days.
