Bengaluru, Nov 8 : Following up on opposition leader Siddaramaiah’s petition, the Centre has directed Karnataka government to probe a complaint made by the Congress leader about one of his staff being spied upon using the Pegasus spyware.
Siddaramaiah, on July 22, petitioned the central government via the President’s Secretariat with a letter complaining that his personal assistant M Venkatesh was a target of “illegal spying and surveillance” with Pegasus spyware. On receiving the plea, the President’s Secretariat referred the matter to the Ministry of Home Affairs on September 13.
The MHA, in turn, referred it to the Karnataka government stating that the police and public order are state subjects under the Seventh Schedule of Indian Constitution.
It, therefore, entrusted the responsibility to take action in the matter to the Basavaraj Bommai’s government in the state. The MHA shot a letter in this regard on October 25 to Karnataka’s Chief Secretary P Ravi Kumar.
On July 18, several media outlets had claimed that several governments, including India, used Pegasus spyware to snoop on thousands of people.
Earlier, former union minister and BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said those who broke the story in the media themselves claimed that the existence of a phone number in the database does not mean that it was spied upon.
He also dismissed any link between the Centre and the spyware and accused people, including Amnesty International for pursuing “an anti-India agenda and trying to create disharmony in the country”.
Prasad also said that there is a robust legal framework in India and phone tapping and surveillance can only be done in cases of national security, and that too after following a legal procedure.
Union Minister and BJP leader Meenakshi Lekhi said “the mobile phone numbers were drawn from yellow pages and were used for yellow journalism”.(UNI)