Pegasus row: SC to hear petitions seeking probe on April 22

The Supreme Court on Friday said it would hear petitions seeking a probe into the alleged unauthorised use of Pegasus spyware for surveillance of journalists and others on April 22.

A Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice N Kotiswar Singh deferred the hearing after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta sought an adjournment, saying the matter had come up after a long time.

On behalf of the petitioners, senior counsel Kapil Sibal said only two petitions were listed on Friday and there were other connected petitions which required a hearing.

In 2022, a Supreme Court-appointed committee — which probed into the Pegasus snooping scandal — had concluded that the Israeli spyware was not found in the 29 mobile phones examined by it even as it detected some other malware in five of the devices.

“Some malware was found in five phones but the technical committee says it can’t be said to be Pegasus," it had said after perusing the report submitted to it in a sealed cover. Headed by Justice RV Raveendran (retd), the panel had submitted the report to the top court in July 2022.

An international media consortium had reported that over 300 verified Indian mobile phone numbers were on the list of potential targets for surveillance using Pegasus spyware. It was also reported that phones of a former judge of the Supreme Court and its registrars were allegedly intercepted using the spyware.

Around 10 petitioners, including the Editors Guild of India and senior journalists N Ram and others, had moved the top court seeking an independent probe into the alleged snooping on eminent citizens, politicians and scribes by using Israeli firm NSO's spyware Pegasus.