Rahul Gandhi welcomes SC's decision to look into Pegasus snooping
Welcoming the Supreme Court verdict on Pegasus row, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday demanded a discussion over the issue in the Parliament. Three experts on cyber security, digital forensics, networks, and hardware were roped in by the Supreme Court to “enquire, investigate and determine” whether Pegasus spyware was used for snooping on citizens and their probe would be monitored by former apex court judge R V Raveendran.
"We are happy that Supreme Court has accepted to look into the Pegasus issue. We will raise this issue again in Parliament. We will try to have a debate in Parliament. I am sure the BJP will not like to have a debate on this," Rahul Gandhi addressing a press conference said.
"During the last Parliament session, we raised the Pegasus issue. Today, SC has given its opinion & supported what we were saying. We were asking 3 questions -who authorized Pegasus?, who was it used against, and did any other country have access to information of our people, Gandhi said, and added, "Pegasus is an attempt to crush Indian democracy. It is a big step that the Supreme Court has said that they will look into this matter. I am confident that we will get the truth out of this."
The Apex court observed that freedom of the press is an “important pillar” of democracy and said the court's task in the Pegasus matter assumes great significance with regard to the importance of protection of journalistic sources and the “potential chilling effect” that snooping techniques may have.
The SC highlighted the aspect pertaining to the freedom of the press and said it is compelled to take up the cause in the matter to determine truth and get to the bottom of the allegations made.
