Pegasus snooping allegations: SC stays proceedings of West Bengal's Lokur panel

New Delhi: The Supreme Court in a significant development on Friday stayed the ongoing inquiry by a West Bengal government-appointed Commission headed by former Apex Court judge M B Lokur to probe the Pegasus snooping allegations.

A bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana also granted petitioner NGO Global Village Foundation the permission to make the Commission a party in the proceedings. The NGO had submitted that the Commission was going ahead with the probe despite the fact that the top court has constituted an expert committee in the case.

The bench, also comprising Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli, on Friday took note of the plea that the Lokur Commission had commenced work despite the assurance of the West Bengal government it would not proceed with the inquiry.

"What is this? Last time you (West Bengal government) had given an undertaking, which we wanted to record, that the Commission will not proceed. You had said that it was not necessary to record in the order. Again you started inquiring," said the bench.

Senior advocate A M Singhvi, appearing for the state government, said he had conveyed the court's directions to the Commission. He added that the restraint on the Commission was till the SC passed its order after which the probe panel began its work.

"I had conveyed the restraint but the Commission is not controlled by me….I cannot as a state government ask them not to," said Singhvi.

The bench said it understands the state's predicament and ordered, Alright, we will issue notice to all the concerned respondents and for the time being we stay all the proceedings. Besides Justice Lokur, former Calcutta High Court chief justice Jyotirmay Bhattacharya is the other member of the Commis-sion of inquiry announced by the West Bengal government recently.

Appointing the panel of experts on October 27, the Apex Court had said the state cannot get a "free pass" every time the spectre of national security is raised and it cannot be the bugbear that the judiciary shies away from.

Delivering one of the more significant verdicts in recent times over the issue of citizens' right to privacy, it had said mere in-vocation of national security by the state cannot render the judiciary a "mute spectator" and asserted that indiscriminate spying on individuals in a democratic country cannot be allowed.

An international media consortium has reported that over 300 verified Indian mobile phone numbers were on the list of po-tential targets for surveillance using Pegasus spyware.

On October 27, it had ordered the setting up of a three-member panel of cyber experts to probe the alleged use of Israeli spyware Pegasus for the surveillance of certain people under the monitoring of former apex court judge R V Raveendran.