Hours after the Supreme Court-appointed panel stated that the Centre did not cooperate in the Pegasus probe, Congress on Thursday alleged the government has “something deeper to hide”.
The Grand Old Party also said that by its actions, the government has made it clear it wants to crush democracy.
Hitting out at the government, former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi tweeted, “PM and his government’s non-cooperation with the SC appointed committee is an acceptance that they have something deeper to hide and want to crush democracy.”
PM and his govt’s non-cooperation with the SC appointed committee is an acceptance that they had something deeper to hide and want to crush democracy. #Pegasus
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) August 25, 2022
Meanwhile, party spokesperson Gourav Vallabh launched a direct attack on the Central government.
“How can they give the answers properly? Because if they give proper answers, they must explain under what provision or act they installed or used the Pegasus weapon against Rahul Gandhi, opposition party leaders, senior journalists, the Election Commissioner of our country, important scientists of our country, civil society activists of our country, and the Supreme Court of our country.”
“Because this government has used this Pegasus weapon against the Registrar of the Supreme Court of India also, how can they answer?” he added.
“Everybody knows that this weapon was used. This weapon had given a dent in democracy. “Everybody knows that this weapon is against the law and the constitution of our country, how can they answer?” the Congress leader said.
Vallabh said that sometimes not answering is also an answer. He said that the government said that they had used the Pegasus weapon against the democracy of this country.
“The government kept silent and said that this Pegasus weapon was used by the government against Rahul Gandhi, against the opposition leaders, against the chief scientists, against the election commissioner, against the registrar of the Supreme Court, against the civil society activists of the country. Against senior journalists in the country. Now what remains to be answered?” he said.
He said that he hopes that the Supreme Court will consider this no answer as an answer and will take strict action against the government in this matter.
The Congress leader said that we have been asking since day one, why did this government use the Pegasus weapon, under which law? “The weapon which is used against the terrorists, the weapon which is used against the people of the enemy country, why did the government use that weapon to weaken the democracy of India?” Vallabh questioned.
His remarks came after the Supreme Court on Thursday said the technical panel appointed by it to probe the unauthorised use of Pegasus had found some malware in five mobile phones out of the 29 examined, but it could not be concluded that it was due to the Israeli spyware.
After perusing the report submitted by former top court Justice RV Raveendran, Chief Justice NV Ramana also noted that the central government did not “cooperate” with the Pegasus probe.