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NATION AUGUST 06, 2021 | The Indian Eye 11

and values of our republic,” he ernment, it is something uncon- should be taken up as a class ac- FIR,” Datar said.
said while adding that this spy- stitutional. It constitutes war by tion case. The Bench then asked the
ware is only sold to government the government on the citizen,” “As per IT Act Section 43, we petitioners to serve a copy of
agencies and can’t be sold to he submitted. can file suit for damages, how- their petitions to the Central
private entities. NSO technolo- Senior advocate Arvind ever, we don’t know who has government’s law officers and
gy is involved in the internation- Datar argued that the phones of hacked our phones therefore it would take up the matter on
al arena, said Sibal. many persons might have been civil remedy is useless, therefore Tuesday. It said without the
Sibal further argued that compromised and the matter there is no provision for filing Central government present in
journalists, public figures, con- the hearing, the bench cannot
stitutional authorities, court of- proceed as of now.
ficers, academics all are targeted There are nine pleas before
by spyware. “The government the top court which were filed
has to answer who purchased it? by senior journalists N Ram,
How much was spent? Where and Sashi Kumar, Rajya Sabha
was the hardware placed? Why MP John Brittas of Communist
did the government not register Marxist Party of India (Marxist)
the FIR, it’s a matter of our pri- and advocate ML Sharma.
vacy? Only the government will Journalist Paranjoy Guha
be able to tell us facts,” he said. Thakurta, SNM Abdi, Prem
Senior advocate Shyam Di- Shankar Jha, Rupesh Kumar
van appearing for one of the Singh and Ipsa Shatakshi, who
petitioners, Jagdeep Chokkar, are reported to be on the po-
said his client is an academi- tential list of snoop targets of
cian and his phone was under Pegasus spyware, had also ap-
surveillance. “For a private citi- An opposition leader holds a placard to mark a protest over the Pegasus proached the top court along
zen to find out that spyware has issue in Lok Sabha during the Monsoon Session of Parliament, in New with The Editors Guild of India
been turned on him by the gov- Delhi on Thursday. (ANI Photo/ LSTV) (EGI) among others.

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