Justice Madan B. Lokur to head Commission of Inquiry set up by West Bengal government to probe Pegasus spyware controversy

As the Pegasus spyware controversy continues to rage in Parliament and across the country, West Bengal became the first State to set up a Commission of Inquiry to look into the matter. The decision to set up a two-member Commission headed by retired Supreme Court Judge Madan Bhimarao Lokur, and retired Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court, Justice Jyotirmay Bhattacharya, was taken at a Cabinet meeting on July 26, hours before Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee left for New Delhi to meet the Prime Minister and opposition leaders. Lokur, retired judge, Hon'ble Supreme Court of India, and Hon'ble Justice Jyotirmay Bhattacharya, retired Chief Justice, Hon'ble High Court at Calcutta, in exercise of the power conferred by Section 3 of the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952, in the matter of the widely reported illegal hacking, monitoring, putting under surveillance, tracking, recording, etc., of mobile phones of various persons in the State of West Bengal.” Earlier, on July 21, Mamata Banerjee, in her annual Martyrs’ Day speech had appealed to the Supreme Court to take “a suo motu cognisance” of the development or set up an SIT that will work under its supervision. “For the whole of last week we thought that with Parliament in session, the Central government would surely start an investigation headed by a Supreme Court judge and under the supervision of the Supreme Court.