Former Supreme Court staffer who accused former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi of sexual harassment was also a target in the phone-hacking case. According to the report of The Wire, three phone numbers of this staffer were monitored. For this, an unknown Indian agency used the Israeli spyware Pegasus. The name of this Indian agency is on the list of potential customers of Pegasus maker NSO Group.
The staffer whose numbers were targeted was fired from service in December 2018. A week later, he had alleged that this was done for opposing the CJI's actions. On April 20, Staffer filed his charges through an affidavit. France's non-profit Forbidden Story Media has a list of those who were targeted.
French media has said that this staffer was included in the list of targets only after accusing the CJI. According to the leaked records which are with the French media, apart from 3 numbers related to the woman, 8 numbers of her husband and two brothers were also marked. These numbers were also included in the probable candidates for surveillance in the same week.
According to the report, 11 numbers associated with the female staffer were included in Pegasus' espionage project. These were the highest numbers related to a single case in India. The inclusion of a female staffer in the spy list and the timing of her selection suggests that she and her family members were included in the list because she had publicly made very serious allegations against the then Chief Justice of India.
This also proves that unreasonable interference and erroneous surveillance had become quite routine in such situations when there was no such public emergency or even the threat of national security.
Earlier, the phones of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and election strategist Prashant Kishor were also hacked. This has been revealed in the next part of the report released by The Wire on Sunday night. After this report came to the fore, Congress demanded an independent inquiry into the entire matter in Parliament. The party has also demanded the resignation of Home Minister Amit Shah.
It has been said in this report that not only Congress leaders but also the phones of Union Culture Minister Prahlad Patel and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnav, who defended the government in Parliament, were hacking targets.
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