Mumbai, Jul 22 (PTI) The Maharashtra unit of the Congress on Thursday demanded a Supreme Court-monitored judicial inquiry into the alleged snooping of politicians and journalists by Israeli spyware Pegasus.

A delegation of Congress leaders led by the party's state unit chief Nana Patole met Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari and submitted to him a memorandum of this demand.

It said the tendency of snooping is misuse of modern technology and dangerous for democracy, and the clarification from the central government is not satisfactory.

"It is necessary to know who in India took the services of Pegasus and ordered snooping of opposition leaders," the memorandum said.

The party said Pegasus has stated that sovereign governments hire their software for use of national security and against terrorism.

"Who gave the permission for spying on all the four pillars of democracy in India?" the party asked in the memorandum.

An international media consortium had recently reported that over 300 verified mobile phone numbers, including of two ministers, over 40 journalists, three opposition leaders besides scores of business persons and activists in India could have been targeted for hacking using Pegasus software/spyware. The government has, however, dismissed allegations of any kind of surveillance on its part on specific people, saying it "has no concrete basis or truth associated with it whatsoever".

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)