Chairman of the Indian Court N.V. Ramana’s decision to investigate the accusation that Narendra Modi passed the use of Pegasus Spyware against opposition leaders, journalists and others was widely welcomed last year. However, as a ‘technical committee’ which he represented to investigate the scandal submitted his report, the extent to which cooperation between the government was unknown.
‘Technical Committee’ – supervised by Judge R.V. Raveendran, a former Supreme Court judge – has given details of civilians invited to testify before him and notification sent to the state government. What he has not revealed so far is whether there are government union officials who serve and retire – overthrown in front of his panel, or whether relevant ministries and institutions are separated from any information or documentation.
While the Raveendran judge committee is called ‘technical’, the key question framed by CJI is this: Does the government get a pegasus? And under what laws and procedures are used for various individuals?
During the trial of the court, the government had raised his nose to the court by submitting the most origin of written statement and rejected – for national security reasons – to answer questions about the acquisition and use of military class spyware. But given the reasons behind the Supreme Court’s orders, such an establishment – both in front of the Committee or Courts – will be an insult because CJI Ramana specifically notes that submitting an appeal of ‘national security’ cannot function as an alibi for violations of basic fundamental rights .
The government, therefore, has two options: talking truth or lies. Any statement must swear and will expose a retired or retired official who lies on the prosecution of a fake oath.
If Judge Raveendran’s report noted that the government refused to cooperate with its investigation, then CJI must find that there is an assumption of guilt and exercising court power to force senior officials to be clean. The cost of a prosecher will be collected by insisting that they are people who submit written statements – rather than some unfortunate under the secretary – and that they answer questions about the oath of what they know about Pegasus.
In particular, there are 10 top individuals, besides Modi of course, who might know more about the acquisition and use of spyware than others and the Supreme Court must insist that they are called to overthrow oaths. All men are still in harness or accept the duties of large government after retirement.
1. National Security Advisor Ajit Kumar Doval
Dooval is the Tsar of the Modi government intelligence. Although the intelligence bureau technically reports to the Minister of the Interior of the Union and Research & Intelligence Wings to the Cabinet Secretary and Prime Minister, in reality NSA encourages the two eye -eyes institutions. In March 2017, he visited Tel Aviv to ‘put the foundation’ for the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was coming to Israel. This is possible when the basic agreement for the purchase of Pegasus is reached.
During Modi’s visit in July 2017, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister at the time, revealed that Indian leaders wanted close cooperation in the field of ‘Cyber Security’.
It is not a coincidence that the database leaked from the telephone number investigated by the wire as part of the Pegasus project began to record activities shortly after the visit of Dooval Modi to Israel that year. Budget papers also recorded a sharp increase in the allocation for the National Security Council Secretariat, which was reported to Dooval, and there was a possibility that some of these additional funds were used to pay Pegasus.
The former intelligence official told The Wire that given the confidentiality surrounding the planned supervision, it was impossible that the Indian Ambassador to Israel at the time, Pawan Kapoor, or the Minister of Foreign Affairs at that time (S. Jaisankar) would be stored in a circle about the Petsusususus.
2 & 3. Director of the Intelligence Bureau: Rajiv Jain (2017-2019), Arvind Kumar, DIB (2019-22)
Sensitive acquisitions from abroad, especially questionable legality, are usually bought by cut-out entities so that Indian institutions have denial, former intelligence officials told The Wire. However, in the case of Pegasus, Israeli export rules for military class spyware need sales to official government entities. Ron Bergman, who took part in writing the story of the New York Times earlier this year, who confirmed Pegasus was sold to India in 2017 as part of the $ 2 billion arms agreement between Israel and the Indian government, explained the process in an interview with a wire:
The sales license is also said that the final user will sign the final user certificate that says that the final user takes himself – this is between the Ministry of Defense Israel and the end user, so, for example, the Indian intelligence bureau – said that the intelligence bureau has taken its own three main commitments, One is using it only by itself and if it gives it to third parties to get previous written permission from the Israeli Ministry of Defense, just to use it, just just to terrorism and organized crimes. And when all that is signed, only then the license is executed and NSO can sell. “
If Pegasus can only be acquired by the Indian government entity, it is likely that IB is represented to make purchases from NSO Group, Israeli companies that develop spyware. However, based on the targeted number pattern, IB almost certainly uses Pegasus. Either Way, Rajiv Jain, who was dib from December 2016 to June 2019. A few months later he was appointed representative of NSA and in 2021 members of the National Human Rights Commission.
Arvind Kumar replaces Jain as Dib in mid-2019 and remains in Harness until June 2022. Considering that the wire found forensic evidence from Pegasus activities on the telephone of the Trinamool Congress Strategy Prashant Kishor recently in July 2021, Kumar needs to be asked about the use of spyware agency .
4 & 5. Research and Analysis of Wing Head: Anil Dhasmana (2017-2019), Samant Goel (2019-)
Bill Marczak from Citizen Lab, an academic research unit based in Toronto focused on the study of digital threats to civil society, told The Wire last year that he and his team had monitored the NSO Group infrastructure to see where his customers spy. “Based on various scanning techniques, including the DNS cache investigation,” he said, Citizen Lab concluded that “one Indian customer, active since 2017, eyes in India and abroad. The second customer, active since at least 2020, spying merely – Eyes in India. “
The unknown agency targeting more than 1,000 Indian telephone numbers also targets around 300 Pakistani people. While IB tracks individuals and entities related to terrorism in India and abroad, the nature of some of the targeted foreign officials in Pakistan and India-Keepan consciously choose not to reveal the details of this aspect-showing more conventional espionage related Conventional associated with conventional conventional espionage of play motivation. If IB and R&W AW have used Pegasus together, it might explain Marzcak’s reference for “one Indian customer, active since 2017” which “spying in India and Overseas”. But then who the customers, have been active since at least 2020, spying “merely in India”? Is Pegasus also used by the Directorate of Enforcement?
However, it is clear that Dhasmana, as the Head of R&W AW from January 2017 to June 2019, and Samant Goel since then, will have intimate knowledge about Pegasus. Dhasmana was appointed as the Head of the National Technical Research Organization immediately after retiring and remained there. Maybe NTRO is a nodal implementing agent for Pegasus. In this case, imposing his testimony (as well as its direct predecessor, Satish Jha) will be very necessary. It might not be possible NTRO was involved with Pegasus from the start, because if already, then Alok Joshi, who led NTRO from 2015 to 2018, would never – as an integrity – had agreed to serve the Raveendran Committee as an expert advisor.
Obviously, no officials will be called to express the nature of external targets or related to terror. The Pegasus project itself chose not to express it. But there will be no violations of national security that they can be confirmed-as they have to do, if asked direct questions about the oath by the process mandated by the Pegasus courts have indeed been purchased by the government.
6, 7 & 8. Secretary of Union Home: Rajiv Mehishi (2015-17), Rajiv Gauba (2017-19), Ajay Kr Bhalla (2019-)
As a domestic secretary at the time of Pegasus, it was likely to be first obtained from Israel and as the head of the Ministry reported by IB, the possibility of Mehishi had knowledge of the purchase. After retiring as a domestic secretary he was appointed as a financial supervisor and auditor general, a post that he retired from August 2020. If, and this is if, some efforts were made to use spyware legally, they mehrishi would almost certainly be involved in ratifying its use in under the existing guidelines for legal interseption. He will then hand over the stick to Rajiv Gauba in August 2017, right when the use of Pegasus moves to high teeth. Likewise, Ajay Kumar Bhalla will come to Loop in August 2019. Every document that approves the Pegasus interseption will bring their signature.
9. Cabinet Secretary: P.K. Sinha (2015-2019), Rajiv Gauba (2019-)
The Nodal R&W Department is the Cabinet Secretariat, led by the Cabinet Secretary. For this reason, the possibility of Sinha also knows about the purchase of Pegasus. In addition, because the Secretariat of the National Security Council “Located at the Cabinet Secretariat”, Sinha will have a broad visibility about the use of NSCS funds or infrastructure for the purpose of obtaining and using spyware in this amount. The same thing applies to Gauba, who has been the Cabinet Secretary since mid -2019, although his knowledge of Pegasus is likely to originate from his previous job as the Secretary of the House.
10. Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah
Although maybe Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to keep Rajnath Singh in the darkness as Minister of the Interior of the Union in 2017 when Pegasus was first obtained and used, it was impossible that Amit Shah was not handled when he moved to the northern block after the 2019 election. Of course, The way in which the congress leaders in Karnataka were beaten with Pegasus ahead of the success of the overthrow of the Siddaramaiah Government had all footprints from the company that was driven by Chanakya. The same thing applies to Prashant Kishor targeting in the middle of the election of the western Bengal Council 2021 – as revealed by his cellphone forensic examination.
If the 10 people insist that the government has not yet bought and uses Pegasus, this will cause embarrassing concerns about the national security companies they represent. This is a note that they and their departments do not bother investigating the possibility that foreign governments have spilled Indians. It is one thing for the Modi government to be a blase about political opponents, journalists, human rights activists and lawyers and even entrepreneurs who are beaten with spyware by evil foreign forces. But given that the list of targets that might include two ministers today (Ashwini Vaishnaw and Pralhad Patel), former Election Commissioner (Ashok Lavasa), former Director of Investigation of the Central Bureau (Alok Verma) and Delhi Police Commissioner at this time (Rakesh Asthana), other than several Intelligence officers, army and paramiliters, the government’s failure to demand answers from NSO Group and Israel – as did France and other countries – bordered by criminal negligence. In short, the court must respond to any rejection with a clear question: If you don’t target these people, why don’t you try to find out which Indian enemies?
Of course, Modi and his advisors know the political consequences of truth imaging will be more destroyed. Acknowledging that buying a pegasus is the same as acknowledging that the government is targeting everyone whose telephone has shown evidence of hacking forensic, and, with implications, all others in the Pegasus project database as well.
Because this also means that funds and public resources are used to disrupt the 2019 general election and the election of the West Bengal Council 2021, all people from the Prime Minister Down will be responsible for criminal prosecution based on the Corruption Prevention Law and the representatives from people acting. This will be a watergate and malpractice selection of Indira Gandhi’s style rolled into one.
Like Indira Gandhi in 1975, Modi’s political fate depends on the judge. In Jagmohanlal’s justice the Sinha of the High Court of Allahabad has a man with the courage and integrity to act against the prime minister who seated. As a PM, Modi has done everything he can to weaken the court and protect herself from possible such meetings. But remember, all that is needed is one hammer in one stable hand.