Hope IT panel will take up Pegasus; BJP may’ve instructed members to skip last meet: Tharoor

Chairman of the parliamentary panel on information technology Shashi Tharoor on Sunday said BJP members “disrupted” the committee’s meeting on July 28 as they did not want the Pegasus allegations to be discussed and the officials who were to testify “appear to have been instructed not to attend”, but expressed hope the snooping issue would be taken up by the panel going forward.

Tharoor, who has written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to take action over ministry officials not attending the panel meet, also asserted that the actions of the three officials making “last-minute excuses” to skip the meeting were a “grievous assault” on such panels’ prerogatives to summon witnesses.