The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved a proposal to set up a commission of inquiry to look into "incidents of physical/electronic surveillance in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, and the NCT of Delhi, allegedly without authorisation."

The commission is likely to be headed by a retired Supreme Court judge and will submit its report within three months.

The snooping of a woman in Gujarat, allegedly without authorisation, was exposed recently via taped phone conversations released by investigative portals, gulail.com and cobrapost.

The portal gulail.com, which released the second part of what is termed as ‘snoopgate’ , on Wednesday , claimed that the snooping of the woman, allegedly at the behest of Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, was not confined to Gujarat but extended to Karnataka as well.

Meanwhile, reacting to the Cabinet’ decision, BJP leader Arun Jaitley tweeted that the proposed commission was ‘phoney’. He said the “action is politically motivated. The Congress Party has not learnt from the drubbing it got in the elections recently. It has continued with its strategy of fighting Narender Modi not politically but through investigative agencies and now through a Commission of Inquiry. “

Jaitley said the “action legally is a suspect and liable for challenge. I am sure it will be legally challenged in courts”, adding that the setting up of this commission violated the federal structure of the Constitution.

He appealed to other Chief Ministers to join the protest against this action.

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