Days before the Supreme Court set up a committee to look into allegations of illegal surveillance on Pegasus spyware, the Centre had asked Chief Secretary P Ravi Kumar to “take action” on a petition by Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah.
In July, Siddaramaiah had written to President Ram Nath Kovind seeking an inquiry into “illegal spying and surveillance” through the Israeli Pegasus spyware. This was forwarded to the Union Home Ministry in September.
In a letter to Kumar dated October 25, the ministry stated: “Since ‘police’ and ‘public order’ are state subjects under the seventh schedule to the Constitution of India, it is the responsibility of the concerned state government to prevent, detect, register and investigate crime and prosecute the criminals involved through the machinery of its law enforcement agencies, and hence, you may take action on the representation, as deemed appropriate.”
A copy of this letter was made public by Siddaramaiah's office on Saturday.
On October 27, the Supreme Court formed an independent expert committee supervised by retired Justice R V Raveendran to go into the "truth or falsity" of allegations of snooping on citizens by use of Pegasus spyware.
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(Published 06 November 2021, 15:13 IST)
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