Retd SC judge Arun Mishra's old number on potential Pegasus targets list: Report

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Amid opposition parties' repeated protests in Parliament pertaining to the Pegasus spyware case and their demand for a debate on the issue, news portal The Wire on Wednesday reported that former Supreme Court judge Arun Mishra's old mobile number was on the list of the NSO Group's potential Pegasus surveillance targets.

Earlier, The Wire had reported that in the list of 300 Indian numbers verified by the Pegasus Project, the number of a sitting judge was present. After speaking to the former judge - who now heads the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) - on the record today, The Wire report confirmed that the judge was Arun Mishra.

"Having now spoken to him on the record, we can confirm that a Rajasthan mobile number formerly registered in the name of Justice Arun Mishra, who retired from the Supreme Court in September 2020, was added to the database in 2019," the report, written by Siddharth Varadarajan, one of The Wire's founding editors and a journalist whose own phone number was found to be on the Pegasus hack list, stated.

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When an older phone belonging to Varadarajan was analysed by Amnesty International's Tech Lab, it was found to contain traces of a Pegasus infection.

The report added, "A confidential source with access to BSNL records said that the number in question was registered in the name of Justice Mishra from September 18, 2010 to September 19, 2018."

Further, it said, "The Wire, as part of its verification process, asked the retired judge if he had continued to use WhatsApp or other messaging apps on his phone even after giving up the number.' The number +9194XXXXXXX is not with me since 2013-2014. I don't use this number,' he replied."

The report said it was not clear why a number surrendered on April 21, 2014 was added to the list.

Also Read: 14 opposition parties blame govt for Parliament logjam, demand debate on Pegasus

During his tenure, Justice Mishra was among the senior-most judges of the Supreme Court.

The judge had set tongues wagging in February 2020 when he had praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi as an "internationally acclaimed visionary" in a public forum.