Advocacy group CJAR urges SC to form SIT to probe Pegasus snooping row

Expressing "deep concern" at the Pegasus episode, the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms (CJAR) on Saturday urged the Supreme Court to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to inquire into claims of the usage of the Israeli spyware to snoop on people, including the complainant in the sexual harassment case against former Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi.

The CJAR said in a statement that the SIT should be composed of independent and credible investigators, headed by a former Supreme Court judge, to inquire into the allegations of phone hacking by the NSO group, allegedly at the Centre's behest.

It wanted the SIT to investigate who authorised the use of Pegasus on phone numbers "belonging to Supreme Court judges and those belonging to the woman staffer (and her family), who had complained of sexual harassment by the then CJI Gogoi".

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The SIT should also inquire into "whether there was improper collusion between...Gogoi and the Union Executive in respect of the sexual harassment allegations leveled against him, it said.

It also wanted the Supreme Court to make public the report of the Justice AK Patnaik committee which looked into the allegations of “conspiracy” in relation to the sexual harassment case against Justice Gogoi.

It said the "large-scale intrusive surveillance" into the personal phones of political leaders, journalists, activists is a "flagrant violation of the right to privacy" as upheld by the Honorable Supreme Court and an "affront" on the civil liberties of citizens.

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"That the Pegasus software was inserted in some of the target phones has been established by cyber forensic analysis of some of these phones by internationally reputed labs. That this was done at the behest of the Indian government is evident from the fact that NSO sells this software only to 'vetted governments'," it said.

While the name of a sitting judge of the Supreme Court whose phones were the target of hacks has not been made public yet, the statement said, the very fact that phones belonging to judges were targets of hacks reportedly by the Centre, is itself sufficiently serious to merit investigation and apportion responsibility.

On reports that the woman complainant against Justice Gogoi and her family were targeted using Pegasus, the CJAR said a detailed and independent probe is required to investigate why a software reportedly made available to only 'vetted governments' for national security issues was used against the victim.

There is also a need to probe the possibility of an "improper collusion between the executive and a judge, where the executive has attempted to intimidate and browbeat" the victim.