Pegasus: Supreme Court extends time for submitting probe report on use of Israeli spyware

Satya Prakash

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New Delhi, May 20

The Supreme Court on Friday gave more time to the technical and supervisory committees appointed by it to “expeditiously” probe into the Pegasus snooping scandal to submit their report after it was informed that 29 “infected” mobile phones were being examined and the process would take four weeks.

Referring to an interim report submitted to it in February, a Bench of Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Hima Kohli said the technical committee, which received 29 mobile phones for examining the spyware, has developed its software for this purpose and issued notices to some government agencies and individuals.

The technical committee has recorded statements of several persons, including some journalists and activists, it said, adding a standard operating procedure for testing the ‘infected devices’ will be finalised soon.

Noting that the technical committee’s exercise should be over by the end of this month, it said the supervisory judge would be making a report for the perusal of the Bench.

Allowing the request for further time for the committees, the top court posted the matter for further hearing in July after the summer vacation.

The Bench ignored a request from senior counsel Kapil Sibal, representing some petitioners, for the interim report to be made available to the parties.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta opposed Sibal’s submission, saying the interim report need not be made public at this stage.

Noting that citizens need to be protected from violation of privacy, a Bench led the CJI had on October 27 set up an independent panel led by Justice Raveendran who is being assisted by former IPS officer Alok Joshi and Dr Sundeep Oberoi—Chairman, Sub Committee in (International Organisation of Standardisation/International Electro-Technical Commission/Joint Technical Committee) in overseeing the work of a three-member technical committee.

The members of the technical committee are Naveen Kumar Chaudhary, Professor (Cyber Security and Digital Forensics) and Dean, National Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar, Dr Prabaharan P, Professor (School of Engineering), Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri, Kerala, and Dr Ashwin Anil Gumaste, Institute Chair Associate Professor (Computer Science and Engineering), IIT, Bombay.

The state can’t get a free pass every time the spectre of national security was raised, the top court had said.

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.