Bengal sets up commission to probe ‘Phone Tapping’

The West Bengal government has formed a commission of enquiry to probe phone hacking and illegal tracking and recording of mobile phones in the state, amid the row over allegations that Israeli spyware licensed only to vetted government agencies was used against politicians, judges and journalists in India. Former Supreme Court judge Madan Lokur and former Calcutta High Court judge Jyotirmoy Bhattacharya are members of the commission.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee announced the formation of the panel in Kolkata on Monday, just before she left for New Delhi. West Bengal is the first state to set up such a panel.

“We were expecting the central government to investigate the Pegasus leaks. As the monsoon session of Parliament is on, we expected the Centre to announce some commission to investigate the snooping. But nothing has been done till date. So, the West Bengal government has formed a commission to look into the illegal phone tapping row,” Banerjee said. Lokur and Bhattacharya “will see who snooped and how it started and who all are in the list,” she said, adding that the Trinamool government has shown the way for others.


The panel will have to submit its report in 6 months. It will probe the mechanism of the spyware or malware used and “investigate the circumstances...and also enquire into the role of state/non-state actors.” The panel will probe “whether any instances of reported interception have occurred, whether any software of Pegasus have been used” and “investigate details of victims and legal provisions of such interception, if found to be true.”