Ahead of the commencement of Lok Sabha at 11 am on Thursday after being adjourned for the day on Wednesday, Congress MP Manish Tewari today gave adjournment motion notice in the Lower House over the 'Pegasus Project' issue.
Tewari in his notice said, "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 "vetted governments" only it suggests that the spyware was used by the Government of India and not any other private body.
He further stated that reputed agencies like Citizen Lab have found traces of the spyware on some of the devices that were attacked.
It should be noted that this kind of surveillance classifies as hacking, which is what a spyware does and it would very much qualify as "unauthorisedinterception" or hacking as per Information Technology Act, 2000, said the Congress MP in the adjournment motion notice.
Tewari said that the government has not categorically denied that Pegasus has been used officially, adding that the matter is of grave concern and therefore being raised.
The House was adjourned thrice, first till 12 noon, then till 3.30 pm and finally it was adjourned for the day till Thursday.
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.
( With inputs from ANI )
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