Pegasus raises dark questions about the Supreme Court and judicial independence

Judicial independence is a necessary condition for democracy since it acts as a check to authoritarian power. However, a hallmark of the Narendra Modi years has been the inability of the courts to review even egregious acts of the Union government, such as Kashmir’s long communications blockade.

Now alarming new revelations show that the situation could be much worse than suspected.

Since July 18, hundreds of names from a leaked database of phone numbers have been published by a consortium of journalists across the world. The names reflect potential targets of illegal cyber surveillance using Pegasus, an Israel-made spying software so uniquely powerful that some experts have called it a “weapon”.

Alarmingly for India, this contains names related to the Supreme Court. The Wire reported that “among the numbers in the Pegasus Project database is one that was registered in the name of a sitting Supreme Court judge”.

While The Wire decided to withhold the name of the judge, given that it was unable to confirm with them if they were using the number at the time, the fact that weapons-grade spyware was used in this case is a troubling development that requires urgent attention.

Equally troubling was the fact that a Supreme Court staffer and her family were selected as potential targets days after…

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