Accusing WhatsApp of committing perjury during the hearings of the Facebook transfer petition, RSS ideologue K.N. Govindacharya has filed a PIL (available below) against Facebook, WhatsApp, MEITY and Union of India on the Pegasus-NSO Group snooping row. He had filed a since rejected impleadment application in the Facebook transfer petition in the Supreme Court. "WhatsApp and other foreign companies have the least respect for Indian legal and judicial system," Virag Gupta, Govindacharya's counsel told MediaNama. What does Govindacharya ask for? Perjury proceedings against WhatsApp for misleading the SC during the transfer petition “by claiming that users[‘] data is fully encrypted and no one including WhatsApp has the key” National Investigation Agency investigation and FIR against Facebook, WhatsApp and NSO Group under the Information technology Act, 2000, and Indian Penal Code, 1860. As an interim prayer, given that the two above will take time to materialise, he wants: Government to stop any surveillance through Pegasus or other similar applications Government to notify Information Technology [Intermediaries Guidelines (Amendment) Rules] 2018 Also, as per his letter to Ravi Shankar Prasad, the minister of electronics and information technology, cited in the petition, he wants “government accounts on private communication networks … removed to protect national security”. What does the petition say? WhatsApp committed perjury in the Supreme Court during the Facebook transfer petition hearings: Since WhatsApp “falsely claimed a protected system” and “failed to disclose about the NSO Hack” to the SC, WhatsApp committed perjury. The petition recalls the analogy of a locked room…
