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Fresh Plea in Pegasus case
After The New York Times reported on January 28 that the Narendra Modi-led government had purchased the Pegasus spyware from Israel in 2017, advocate ML Sharma has filed a suit in the Supreme Court requesting a probe. According to the newspaper, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ties have "warmed" as a result of a deal to sell "a package of sophisticated weapons and intelligence gear worth roughly $2 billion – with Pegasus and a missile system as the centerpieces." Sharma asked the court to issue an order registering a first information report to prosecute the "concerned parties" and investigate and recover the public funds paid as part of the alleged arrangement.
Mr. Sharma claimed that the "contract was not brought before the House for approval and violation of trust for personal political gain by the Prime Minister and the BJP party is illegal, attracting criminal breach of trust and embezzlement of public funds...", "Petitioner has also filed an application to issue a letter rogatory to an Israeli court for securing required evidence secured by the government during its raid against the NSO office and other sites, which is still ongoing," according to the application.
The alleged purchase arrangement, according to Sharma, was not approved by Parliament. The advocate said that the Bharatiya Janata Party and the prime minister had broken the law by "embezzling" public funds to further the party's political goals.
Former Union Finance Minister and Congress politician P Chidambaram stated on Sunday that if the previous agreement was worth $2 billion, India might "do better this time." "If we get more advanced malware before the 2024 elections, we can pay them even $4 billion," he claimed in a tweet. The Congress party called the Modi government's alleged deployment of malware an "act of treason" on Saturday. General VK Singh, a Union Minister of State, tweeted, "Can you trust NYT?? They're dubbed 'Supari Media.'" Several media outlets throughout the world reported on the use of Pegasus, which was developed by the NSO Group, in July.
The Wire stated that Pegasus had been used to spy on 161 Indians. Several petitions have been submitted before the Supreme Court, requesting that the topic being investigated. On October 27, the Supreme Court created a three-member technical team to look into the Pegasus software accusations. Last year, Sharma was one of the petitioners who went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court committee issued a public notice on January 2 asking anyone to write to inquiry@pegasus-india-investigation.in with proof of why they believe their phone has been hijacked by the malware. The submission deadline was January 7th. In August and September, the administration pushed back against criticism following the media exposés, stating that the allegations about Pegasus were "conspiracies." It was brought up, according to the Centre, to "derail India's growth" and as retaliation for India's ostensibly competent handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
