Pegasus row: Supreme Court to hear petitions seeking probe on April 29

The Supreme Court on Tuesday deferred to April 29 hearing on petitions seeking a probe into the alleged unauthorised use of Pegasus spyware for the surveillance of politicians, journalists, activists and others.

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A bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice N Kotiswar Singh deferred the hearing for want of time.

On behalf of petitioners, senior advocate Shyam Divan said the bench had previously ordered supply of reports of a technical panel but the same had not been shared.

“This court will have to pass some directions because we have not received the reports. Kindly hear it urgently,” Divan told the bench.

On March 7, the bench had deferred the hearing at the request of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta.

A Supreme Court-appointed committee — which probed into the Pegasus snooping scandal — had in 2022 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 phones.

“In five phones some malware was found 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 (Retd) RV Raveendran, 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.