Kapil Sibal hits back at Amit Shah over Pegasus, says snooping 'threat to national safety'

Congress leader Kapil Sibal came down heavily on the government over the Pegasus spyware case. In a press conference on Tuesday, Sibal questioned the authorities for 'snooping on telephones of CMs, etc. Earlier, reports broke out that leaders of the Karnataka Congress and Janata Dal-Secular could have been possibly snooped upon in 2019, at a time when the state's alliance government crumbled.

It is important to note here that Sibal's statements come even as the government has clarified over the Pegasus row saying that they did not snoop on anyone. 

"Snooping is a threat to nationwide safety"

Sibal asserted that snooping on the telephones of Chief Ministers, politicians, judges, and citizens of a country violates a number of legal guidelines of the nation and can be considered as a 'threat' to nationwide safety. 

The Congress leader slammed the government and said, “Our structure says the federal government ought to defend nationwide safety, however what if our authorities jeopardised nationwide safety?”.

“If this information reaches different countries, whether it is accessed by NSO masterminds, it will turn into a menace to nationwide safety. For now, only these lists have come over. It will be important to note that within the coming days it is going to be revealed that they have intercepted different people too,” he added.

"Snooping is illegal at many levels"

The 72-year-old former Union minister and distinguished lawyer also said that snooping as such is illegal at a number of levels. It can breach multiple cyber laws, the Official Secrets Act, the fundamental right to privacy, and depending on the situation, can even be counted as stalking. "If you have put malware in the phone a minister and intercepted it, that is violative of the Official Secrets Act... It is a violation of the Information Technology Act. And if you are doing this to a woman, it is a violation of Section 354D of the IPC (Indian Penal Code) and would be termed as 'stalking'. It is also a violation of the right to privacy," the Congress leader said.

'Aap chronology samajhiye' 

Meanwhile, the Congress leader used Home Minister Amit Shah's 'aap chronology samajhiye' jibe against him to iterate that the government was allegedly spying on them using Pegasus from 2017 to 2019.

Sibal said it was the government that "maligned India" over the Pegasus row. "It is the government that maligned India on the Pegasus row. Amitji 'Aap Chronology Samajhiye'," Sibal said. Sibal also dared the Union Home Minister to deny the snooping allegations on the floor of the House if it was 'not true'.

Ruckus in Parliament over Pegasus row

Earlier, replying to the Pegasus row, which created a commotion on the first day of the Monsoon session of the Parliament, Home Minister Amit Shah called it an attempt "to malign Indian democracy and its well-established institutions".

Notably, following the unraveling of the 'Pegasus Project' report created quite a ruckus within and outside the Parliament, Republic Media Network on Monday wrote to the maker of the Pegasus software, Israeli-based NSO Group, which in its reply systematically exposed the lack of journalistic methodology in making allegations of phone-tapping. Quoting the report of one of the lead papers of the international consortium behind the 'Pegasus Project', the firm highlighted - 'the purpose of the list could not be conclusively determined' and the list does not 'identify who puts the numbers on it or why'. The firm further added, in the report,  it is mentioned that 'how many of the phones were targeted or surveilled was unknown'. The list being referred to allegedly contained 50,000 phone numbers which has been linked to snooping using Pegasus, from which certain numbers purportedly belonged to persons in India, thereby kicking up controversy on these shores as well. 

What is the Pegasus row?

A report by sixteen media houses claimed that 300 verified Indian mobile telephone numbers were allegedly spied upon using Israeli surveillance technology firm Pegasus - which only has 36 vetted governments as its clients. As per a 'leaked' database, numbers of those allegedly spied upon include over 40 journalists, three major opposition figures, one constitutional authority, two serving cabinet ministers, current and former heads, and officials of security organizations and businessmen. The target also includes the eight activists currently accused of the Bhima Koregaon case. The report claimed that the leaked numbers mainly belong to ten countries - India, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.