Congress MP Manish Tewari on Monday moved an adjournment motion notice in the Lok Sabha over the Pegasus report, an issue among others that has led to repeated adjournments of both the Houses of Parliament since the Monsoon Session commenced. Terming the Pegasus spyware issue ‘a matter of grave concern’, Tewari stated that ‘reputed agencies’ like Citizen Lab have found traces of the spyware on some of the devices that were attacked.
“Reports have pointed out that the Government of India has procured the surveillance tool Pegasus developed by Israeli company NSO Group for surveillance of Journalists, Civil Society Activists, Politicians and Supreme Court Judges. Since the NSO group’s policy is that clients are confined to the vetted government only it suggests that the spyware was used by the GoI and not any other private body,” the Congress MP said in his adjournment motion. “It should be noted that this kind of surveillance classifies as hacking, which is what spyware does and it would very much qualify as unauthorised interception or hacking as per Information Technology Act, 2000. The fact is that the government has not categorically denied that Pegasus has been used officially. Sir this is a matter of grave concern and therefore I wish to raise the same,” he added.
Tewari, earlier on last week, too moved an adjournment motion notice in the Lok Sabha over the same issue. The business of both the Houses of the Parliament remained majorly disrupted due to the continuous ruckus created by the Opposition over the issues including farmers’ protest, Pegasus spyware, COVID-19 and inflation.
The Monsoon Session commenced on July 19 and is scheduled to continue till August 13. (ANI)
