Spooky change intelligence agencies need parliamentary oversight let that be the post pegasus consensus

Spooky change intelligence agencies need parliamentary oversight let that be the post pegasus consensus

Amidst the political slugfest over Pegasus, Congress MP Manish Tewari has revived his private members’ bill to give legal backing and parliamentary oversight to intelligence and security agencies, Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), Intelligence Bureau (IB) and National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO). The idea, first mooted by Tewari in 2011, is excellent and merits cross-party support. In a democracy, it is essential for these agencies to be accountable to the public through the legislature, rather than report to the executive alone.

Take the case of IB. It was set up in 1887 through an administrative order by a British official. Today, 134 years later, there is no constitutional or statutory backing for IB, or even a formal charter, apart from a law in 1985 restricting some of its rights. There’s no independent oversight or external scrutiny. It is essential to lay out an intelligence agency’s remit, the range of actions permitted to the minister it reports to, and protections for the agency’s director. There must be institutional safeguards to allow officials to refuse unreasonable instructions from the political executive.

Of course, secrecy is needed for security and intelligence work. But in democracies, safeguards to prevent illegal or dubious practices are as important. For example, there has to be clear demarcation between public duties and information-gathering that looks political in nature or seems ultra vires of constitutional liberties.

All over the world, it was scandals and rights abuses that spurred change. In mid-1970s, shocked by CIA spying, the US enacted oversight mechanisms, including congressional scrutiny. Australia and Canada followed suit in 1980s. In Canada, for instance, ministerial instructions have to be put in writing and made available to the oversight committee, in Australia, to an independent inspector-general who also reports to the leader of the opposition.

Parliamentary oversight doesn’t mean the whole House. A specialised parliamentary committee to exercise systematic and focussed oversight is what India needs. In the US, congressional intelligence committees, which work within a ring of secrecy, must be informed in advance of special operations. In the UK, the intelligence and security committee’s oversight is limited to policy and finance, in Norway, to matters of human rights and the rule of law. India would do well to follow the US model.

Given intelligence agencies’ enormous new powers of surveillance, and the atmosphere of political polarisation and mutual distrust, it is crucial that India’s espiocrats re-establish their credibility as well as their neutrality.