STRIPPING OFF THE CLOAK OF SECRECY
“If you want to keep a secret, you must hide it from yourself.”
A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana, quoted this line from George Orwell’s seminal novel 1984 while delivering its order on October 27 on the Pegasus spyware controversy. The court took exception to the government’s refusal to file a detailed response to the allegations made by the petitioners in the case, and observed that it “should not take an adversarial position when the fundamental rights of citizens are at threat”.
Even while admitting that the scope of judicial review is limited in matters relating to national security, the three-judge bench categorically asserted that the state
