New Delhi: K.N. Govindacharya, a former RSS leader, has filed an application in the Supreme Court asking it to revive a petition he had filed and later withdrew in 2019 that sought the registration of an FIR against alleged surveillance by using the Pegasus spyware. His petition had sought a National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe against Facebook, WhatsApp and NSO Group, which makes the Pegasus spyware.
According to the Indian Express, Govindacharya’s fresh plea seeks a “fair, impartial and responsible investigation to ascertain the magnitude of use of Pegasus in India, and the entities responsible for the same”.
The petition terms surveillance through Pegasus as “illegal” and added that the allegations, which were uncovered by the Pegasus Project – an international consortium of media organisations of which The Wire is a part – present “the biggest threat to life and personal liberty, and is in fact cyber terrorism, which is punishable under S. 66 F of the Information Technology Act, 2000”.
The newspaper said that Govindacharya had approached the top court in 2019, following the first round of revelations that the phones of several Indian activists and lawyers were compromised by Pegasus. WhatsApp had notified several persons that their phones may have been compromised.
Govindacharya had also sought “perjury proceedings” against WhatsApp for “misleading” the court in earlier proceedings, when the Facebook-owned company had said that its users’ data is “fully encrypted and no one, including WhatsApp, has the key”.
It is important to note here that encrypted messages cannot be decrypted if they are intercepted while they are being transmitted. However, since Pegasus takes control of the phone, it would allow the hacker to read the messages since they would not be encrypted on the device itself.
According to the Indian Express, Govindacharya’s application is likely to be listed for hearing by the court. The top court is already seized of a batch of petitions seeking an independent probe into the allegations. On Monday’s hearing, the Union government informed the apex court that the allegations of snooping will be “examined by a group of experts in the field”.