Supreme Court may set up a technical committee to probe The Pegasus Case

The Supreme Court (SC) may pass an order to set up a technical committee to probe the Pegasus snooping scandal. Chief Justice of India (CJI) N.V. Ramana made this oral announcement on Thursday, LiveLaw has reported. A formal order may be passed by next week, it said.

CJI Ramana said this to advocate Chander Uday Singh, who is a counsel of one of the petitioners in the Pegasus case, while Singh was appearing in an unrelated case before the CJI.

Next Week's Order

CJI said that the SC wanted to pass an order for the same this week itself. But the experts that the court wanted to include expressed difficulty in joining the committee, citing personal reasons. Hence, the court deferred passing an order for next week.

The Pegasus Row

On June 18 this year, the online news portal The Wire released a list of about 300 potential targets of the snooping software Pegasus, in India. The list included 40 journalists among activists, social workers, civil servants, two union ministers, and three opposition leaders who were suspected of being spied upon during 2017 to 2018, just before the runup to the 2019 general elections.

For the report, The Wire collaborated with 16 other international publications, including The Washington Post, The Guardian, and Le Monde, as media partners in an investigation conducted by Paris-based media non-profit organization Forbidden Stories and rights group Amnesty International.

 "Only To Vetted Governments"

The NSO Group is an Israeli company that developed the software, denied allegations of allowing its customers to spy upon civilians. The company said its customers only included "vetted governments".

This raised questions about the government of India and other countries whose citizens were named on the list. Opposition parties in India have asked the government to clarify whether it used the software or not and hold a discussion on the controversy in Parliament.

 "No Factual Basis"

For this, the Electronics and Information Technology Minister, Ashwini Vaishnav, whose name was also on the list, had to answer in Parliament.

"It is not a coincidence that the reports have been published a day before the monsoon session of Parliament," he had said. "In the past, similar allegations were made [about the use of Pegasus] on WhatsApp, but there is no factual basis for these and have been categorically denied."

However, the minister didn't clarify whether the government used the software and whether it was, or had been, a customer of the NSO group.

Later, some journalists filed a petition with the SC asking for a probe into the matter. During the hearings, the government cited national security as the reason for not telling the court whether it used the spyware or not. To this end, the court has reserved its decision, which may be passed next week, to set up the technical committee.

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