Welcoming the Supreme Court decision to constitute a three-member committee for probe into the Pegasus spyware case, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said the alleged surveillance "was an attempt to crush Indian democracy".
Addressing a press conference here, he expressed confidence that the probe will bring out the truth and termed the order as a "big step".
"Pegasus was used against the chief ministers, former prime ministers, BJP's ministers among others. Was Prime Minister and Home Minister getting the data obtained through the use of Pegasus? If the data of phone tapping of Election Commission, Chief Election Commissioner and Opposition leaders are going to Prime Minister, then it is a criminal act," he said.
"We are happy that Supreme Court has accepted to look into the Pegasus issue. Pegasus is an attempt to crush Indian democracy. It is a big step that the Supreme Court has said that they will look into this matter. I am confident that we will get the truth out of this," he added.
The Congress leader said that the party will try to have a debate over the issue in the winter session of Parliament.
He said the Congress, which raised the issue in the monsoon session of parliament, has been asking the government to answer who authorised Pegasus.
"We will raise this issue again in Parliament. We will try to have a debate in Parliament. I am sure the BJP will not like to have a debate on this. During the last Parliament session, we raised the Pegasus issue. Today, SC has given its opinion and supported what we were saying. We were asking three questions -- who authorised Pegasus? Who was it used against and did any other country have access to information of our people," he said.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday formed a three-member technical committee for probe into Pegasus spyware case.
The committee will be supervised by retired judge Justice R V Raveendran andwill examine the allegations thoroughly and expeditiously and place a report before the court.
The court will hear the matter again after eight weeks. The Technical Committee includes Dr Naveen Kumar Chaudhary, Dr Prabaharan P and Dr Ashwin Anil Gumaste.
( With inputs from ANI )
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