‘You can’t compromise or sacrifice the nation’s security’: Supreme Court on Pegasus row

The Supreme Court said Tuesday there is nothing wrong if a country has spyware and employs it for its security, and the only question would be against whom it is used.

Presiding over a two-judge bench, Justice Surya Kant said this while hearing a clutch of petitions filed in 2021 in the wake of allegations that Pegasus, the Israeli-made spyware, was being used for surveillance of journalists, activists, and politicians.

The comments came as Senior Advocate Dinesh Dwivedi, appearing for some petitioners, said even if his client’s phone was not hacked and is clean, the question remains whether the government has the spyware. “The basic question is whether they have this spyware, and they have purchased and used it or not. Because if they have it, there is nothing to prevent them from continuously using it to date,” he said in front of the bench, also comprising Justice N K Singh.

However, Justice Kant asked, “What’s wrong if the country is using that spyware against (terrorists)…To have spyware is not wrong. Against whom it is used is….that is the point. It’s not that simple. You can’t compromise or sacrifice the security of the nation”.

Appearing for the Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said, “Terrorists cannot have privacy rights even if you claim them to be.” To which, Justice Kant said, “A private civilian has a privacy right and protection under the Constitution. Their complaint with regard to that can always be looked into.”

In 2012, the Supreme Court set up a three-member technical committee supervised by its former judge Justice R V Raveendran to probe the allegations that the Israeli-made spyware was being used for surveillance. The committee said in its report that it found no conclusive evidence of the use of spyware in the phones examined by it.

The petitioners have now approached the court seeking redacted copies of the report.

The court will now hear the matter on July 30.

Ananthakrishnan G. is a Senior Assistant Editor with The Indian Express. He has been in the field for over 23 years, kicking off his journalism career as a freelancer in the late nineties with bylines in The Hindu. A graduate in law, he practised in the District judiciary in Kerala for about two years before switching to journalism. His first permanent assignment was with The Press Trust of India in Delhi where he was assigned to cover the lower courts and various commissions of inquiry.

He reported from the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India during his first stint with The Indian Express in 2005-2006. Currently, in his second stint with The Indian Express, he reports from the Supreme Court and writes on topics related to law and the administration of justice. Legal reporting is his forte though he has extensive experience in political and community reporting too, having spent a decade as Kerala state correspondent, The Times of India and The Telegraph. He is a stickler for facts and has several impactful stories to his credit.