Supreme Court agrees to hear Pegasus snooping plea next week

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a plea by veteran journalists N Ram and Sashi Kumar seeking a direction for an independent probe by its sitting or retired judge into the alleged Pegasus snooping scandal.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal mentioned the matter before a bench headed by Chief Justice NV Ramana and Justice Surya Kant stating that civil liberties of citizens, politicians, belonging to Opposition parties, journalists, and court staff have been put under surveillance.

He insisted that it is an issue, which is making waves in India and world over and this issue requires an urgent hearing. After Sibal's submissions, the bench said it may hear the matter next week.

The plea filed by scribes said mass surveillance using a military-grade spyware abridges several fundamental rights and appears to represent an attempt to infiltrate, attack and destabilize independent institutions, which are critical pillars of country's democratic setup.

The petitioners sought direction to be issued to the Centre to disclose if any of its agencies have obtained license for Pegasus spyware or used it either directly or indirectly, to conduct surveillance as alleged.

The plea claimed that hacking constitutes a criminal offence punishable under inter alia Section 66 (computer related offences), 66B (punishment for dishonestly receiving stolen computer resource or communication device), 66E (punishment for violation of privacy) and 66F (punishment for cyberterrorism) of the IT Act, punishable with imprisonment and/or fine.

Earlier, advocate ML Sharma and Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas had also moved the apex court seeking probe into the spying allegations. (IANS)

"The rapid decline on the 5-cent piece is because it's made of copper, on which viruses are known to be less stable," explained Daniel Todt, from the varsity's Department of Molecular and Medical Virology.

The study was published in the journal iScience.

The researchers also developed a new method to study how well the virus is transferred from a surface to the fingertip.

They contaminated banknotes, coins and credit-card-like PVC plates with harmless coronaviruses and, under high-security conditions, also with SARS-CoV-2.

These surfaces were then touched, while still wet or when already dried, by test subjects with their fingertips or, in the case of SARS-CoV-2, with artificial skin.

Cell cultures were then inoculated with the viruses adhering to the fingertips. This allowed the researchers to determine the number of transmitted virus particles that were still infectious.

"We saw that immediately after the liquid had dried, there was practically no transmission of infectious virus," Todt said.

"Under realistic conditions, infection with SARS-CoV-2 from cash is very unlikely," he added.

Smear infections via surfaces are almost non-existent. The current study was conducted with the Alpha variant of SARS-CoV-2 in addition to the wild-type variant.

"We assume that other variants, such as the currently predominant Delta variant, also behave similarly," said Eike Steinmann, Professor at the varsity. (IANS)

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