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Supreme Court today expressed displeasure at the petitioners in the Pegasus Cases expressing opinions on public forums like Twitter & other platforms in a sub-judice issue.

A Full Bench of Chief Justice NV Ramana, Justice Vineet Saran and Justice Surya Kant, while hearing the matter said,

“Any of these people who are interested in matters and are saying things in the media — we hope you will answer within Court. If you don’t have faith, its another thing. You must have faith in system. Expressing opinions on Twitter and all, what is this... I hope the petitioners are able to answer us in the four walls of the Court halls, everyone will face the music. Let this unfurl in a debate"
- CJI NV Ramana

Learned SGI Tushar Mehta sought permission for matter to be taken up on Friday. Court said that it will now be taken up on August 16 instead.

At the outset, Senior Advocate(s) CU Singh and Rakesh Dwivedi did not object against the pleas being adjourned.

Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal submitted that a comment of his was blown out of proportion on Social Media, referring to the exchanges on a statement made in N. Ram’s plea due to which his client was trolled.

Court said, “We were only asking a question, you see this is what happens - things being blown out of proportion”

Further, after CJI expressed displeasure at expression of opinions in a case which is sub-judice by petitioner(s), Counsel, including Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal said that they will instruct their client(s) to practice restraint.

As directed, Centre appeared in court today as well but no formal notice was issued in the case(s) to the Centre.

Background:

Earlier, the Court, though not completely denying merits of the petition, asked why no FIRs were registered in the matter when it first emerged in 2019.

A Division Bench of Chief Justice NV Ramana and Justice Surya Kant, previously said,

“We want to ask certain questions, except the Editors guild petition – You all know that there is admissible material, verified material on which we can entertain WPs. May 2019 this came into light. I do not know why, any serious concern regarding this issue was not raised then. Suddenly we have these petitions. People who have filed these WPs are reputed people, they should have done more focussed effort to put more material, at the same time we cannot say there is no material as there are reports on it. Another angle is, some of the people have not gone into individual cases, they have come up for their cases in these PILs – you know there are provisions under the IT Act, Telegraph Act. Why are no complaints lodged under it?"

Comprehensive submissions were made by Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal for N. Ram, Ms. Meenakshi Arora for CPI (M) leader John Brittas, Senior Adv. Shyam Divan for Jagdeep Chokkar, Mr. Datar for 2 Journalists in a connected matter.

“It infiltrates into our lives without our knowing and it hears, watches every moment. It causes assault on privacy and dignity and penetrates into backbone of the Internet," submitted Kapil Sibal.

Court asked that alleged snooping have been reported for Indian Journalists also, alleges N. Ram’s petition as per the Californian Court’s Observation – “where can that be found in the California Court’s judgement?”

Learned Senior Counsel Meenakshi Arora for CPI (M) leader John Brittas, submitted, “It is a categorical statement made by NSO that only sovereign entity can take this software”

Senior Advocate Shyam Divan appearing for Jagdeep Chokkar, submitted,

“These are not just media reports being made here and there – Two National Governments have taken action – The USA and France have taken action on the basis of these reports. So these are media reports which enjoy a very very high degree of credibility.”

“We seek a response from the Government as an interim relief and a deeper investigation into the issue. It is necessary for the Cabinet Secretary to make affidavits in the present case,” added Mr. Divan.

Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi appeared for a connected matter, submitted that, this is a matter in huge dimension, 

“This is not a case of a single person’s privacy being barged into – If a foreign entity is involved, the Government of India should have responded or taken action on its own. The whole country should be ensured that their internets will not be compromised like this. This involves Constitutionality also, not just Criminality.”

Senior Advocate, Arvind P Datar appearing for 2 Journalists, submitted on statutory provisions for individual reliefs and the added contours of Right to Privacy as enunciated by the Puttaswamy judgment.

A batch of petitions have been filed seeking similar relief in the present matter, by Adv. ML Sharma, CPI MP John Brittas, N Ram of The Hindu, Jagdeep Chokkar, Narendra Mishra, Rupesh Kumar Singh, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, SNM Abdi and the Editors Guild of India.

On 19th July 2021, a consortium of 17 international media organizations including an Indian news portal 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.

NSO Group, who owns ‘Pegasus Spyware’, was sued by WhatsApp and Facebook in 2019 before the US Californian Court for exploiting its platform to carry out remote surveillances. 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.

Also Read: 5 alleged victims of Pegasus move Supreme Court to declare the software’s usage Unconstitutional

Case Title: ML Sharma v. PM Narendra Modi | N. Ram & Ors v. UOI | John Brittas v. UOI | Editors Guild of India v. UO