Snoopgate: Panel to submit report in 3 months

A sitting or retired Supreme Court judge is likely to head the judicial Commission of Inquiry to be set up by the Centre to investigate charges of spying by the Gujarat government on a young woman in 2009. The Centre has rejected the Gujarat government’s contention that under the Commission of Inquiry Act, the Centre or the State government cannot appoint an inquiry commission into a matter on which one of the two governments has already set up such a panel – in this case the State government has already set up a commission. Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh, on his part, has said the State panel is a case of an “accused appointing the investigation agency”. Welcoming the Centre’s decision, Mr. Singh said: “It should have happened much earlier because there is open violation of the Indian Telegraph Act and the Information Technology Act.” Snoopgate broke over a month ago when two news portals released CDs of purported telephonic conversations, purportedly between August and September 2009, between the then Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah and two State police officers relating to surveillance of a woman architect.