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Into the recent allegations related to Pegasus spyware, CPI(M) leader and Rajya Sabha MP from Kerala, John Brittas has filed a writ petition before the Supreme Court urging for an immediate court monitored investigation through a special investigating team.

Highlighting that already cases against unauthorized interceptions by NSO, company who owns Pegasus spyware, are pending before the US Californian Court, the petitioner, a member of Communist Marxist Party of India (Marxist) and Managing Director to a Malayalam TV Channel- Kairali, has pleaded that only a proper court monitored investigation can alleviate the apprehensions and agonies caused by the Pegasus Spyware incident.

The petition also highlights that when the concerns were raised about the unauthorized surveillance in the Parliament, Minister for Electronics and Information Technology issued a statement in Rajya Sabha neither denying nor admitting the snooping by spyware. Calling it an evasive statement, the petitioner has stated that the Government has unequivocally accepted the statement of the company which has denied these claims out rightly and blindly accepted their casual statement without any investigation which calls for an undue reliance being placed upon.

“Despite the very serious nature of allegations,  Government has not cared to  investigate into the allegations involved in the issue but made only  a hopeful hope that  the time tested processes in our country are well- established to ensure that unauthorized surveillance does not occur,” the petition states.

Emphasizing over the fact that snooping has an impact on the actions of the individual resulting in a chilling effect on free speech and expression, if done unauthorised, the assurance given by the Minister that ‘the time tested processes in our country are well- established to ensure that unauthorized surveillance does not occur’ is a mere false hope, the petition adds. 

Adding further that ‘since even the phones of topmost CBI officers and Central investigating agencies are said to be intercepted, an independent and transparent investigation through any of these central agencies may not invoke a trust in the eyes of general public’ the petitioner has justified his plea before the court.

Backdrop of the case

On 19^th July 2021, a consortium of 17 international media organizations including an Indian news portal in India published an investigation around a leaked list of phone numbers from across the world, named the Pegasus Project. These numbers in the leaked list are allegedly the “target list” of phones hacked /to be hacked by the Pegasus spyware product sold by Israel’s NSO Group. The target list said to contain the numbers of 136 prominent politicians, judges, journalists, businessmen, rights activists etc.

According to the Indian media reports independent digital forensic analysis conducted by Amnesty International’s Security Lab on 10 Indian phones whose numbers were present in the data showed signs of either an attempted or successful Pegasus hack.

Also, NSO Group-Israeli Cyber weapon’s company- who owns ‘Pegasus Spyware’- was sued by WhatsApp & Facebook in 2019 before the US Californian Court for exploiting vulnerability on its platform to carry out the remote surveillance attack.  NSO claimed sovereign immunity as its products were sold only to governments and state agencies. However, The Californian Court ruled in favour of WhatsApp and dismissed NSO’s claim.

Legal frame work for an authorized snooping

Any authorized snooping can be done in our country only by following the procedures of lawful interceptions mandated by the laws under the provisions of Section 5(2) of Indian Telegraph Act   1885, Section 69 of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2000, Section 92 of Cr.P.C. and Rule 419(a) of the Indian Telegraph Rules.