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The Court found the government’s denial \u201cvague\u201d and observed that the\u00a0State cannot get a free pass every time national security is raised, adding that “in the task of upholding fundamental rights, the state cannot be an adversary\u201d.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The Supreme Court has set the ball rolling for an independent probe into the alleged snooping using Israeli firm NSO\u2019s spyware Pegasus observing that it can have a chilling effect on media freedom leading to self-censorship. Over 300 mobile numbers of journalists, human rights activists and others were the targetted in India.<\/p>\n The government had argued that revealing details could imperil national security and has so \u00a0far avoided answering whether it acquired Pegasus for spying. The Court found the government’s denial \u201cvague\u201d and observed that the\u00a0State cannot get a free pass every time national security is raised, adding that “in the task of upholding fundamental rights, the state cannot be an adversary\u201d.<\/p>\n A Bench led by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana said, while ordering a probe into Pegasus allegations, \u201cThis is of particular concern when it relates to the freedom of Press. Such a chilling effect on the freedom of speech is an assault on the vital public watchdog role of the Press. Protection of journalistic sources is one of the basic conditions for the freedom of the press. Without such protection, sources may be deterred from assisting the press in informing the public on matters of public interest.\u201d<\/p>\n Allowing pleas filed by activists and journalists, who along with others, had sought probe into the alleged snooping, \u00a0the top Court\u00a0observed that it is an \u201cassault\u201d on its vital \u2018public watchdog\u2019 role.\u00a0 \u201cIt is undeniable that surveillance and the knowledge that one is under the threat of being spied on can affect the way an individual decides to exercise his or her rights. Such a scenario might result in self-censorship. This is of particular concern when it relates to the freedom of the press, which is an important pillar of democracy\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cIn this light, this court is compelled to take up the cause to determine the truth and get to the bottom of the allegations made herein,\u201d the court said.<\/p>\n The Bench observed, refusing the government\u2019s offer to form a committee to examine the allegations that the apex court is \u201ccompelled to take up the cause to determine the truth and get to the bottom of the allegations\u201d. It may be recalled that the Editors Guild of India, had sought an independent probe into the government\u2019s alleged role in the Pegasus controversy.\u00a0 It had alleged that \u201cindiscriminate use\u201d of top-end surveillance technology against journalists destroys free speech and \u201cpoisons the heart of democracy\u201d.\u00a0 The Guild had pointed out that freedom of press is a hard-won right essential to democracy.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Freedom of the Press relies on non-interference by the government and its agencies in the reporting of journalists, including their ability to securely and confidentially speak with sources, investigate abuse of power and corruption, expose governmental incompetence, and speak with those in the Opposition,\u201d its petition had noted.\u00a0 The government had \u201cdeliberately avoided\u201d public debate on the issue. It had only provided some \u201cobfuscated answers\u201d to straight questions about its alleged role in the snooping, the plea stated.\u00a0 \u201cThe citizens of India have a right to know if the Executive government is infringing the limits of their authority under the Constitution and what steps have been taken to safeguard their fundamental rights\u201d, it said.<\/p>\n The Editors Guild told the court that it was only seeking the enforcement of the public\u2019s right to know the truth about who was behind the Pegasus surveillance exercise. It also sought a \u201ccomplete overhaul\u201d of the \u201csurveillance architecture\u201d by even challenging the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, Rule 419A of the Indian Telegraph Rules 1951, Section 69 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Interception, Monitoring and Decryption) of Information Rules, 2009.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Court found the government’s denial \u201cvague\u201d and observed that the\u00a0State cannot get a free pass every time national security is raised, adding that “in the task of upholding fundamental rights, the state cannot be an adversary\u201d. The Supreme Court has set the ball rolling for an independent probe into the alleged snooping using Israeli […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":334462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,36,14695,2205],"tags":[14696,13669,14698,12092,134,14697],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334461"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":334463,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334461\/revisions\/334463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/334462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}