Pegasus panel submits interim report in Supreme Court, hearing on Friday
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the matter of the Pegasus snooping case on Friday instead of Wednesday, after the technical committee set up by the apex court sought more time to submit its findings on the alleged misuse of the Israeli spyware on Indian citizens.
The Supreme Court will hear the Pegasus snooping case on Friday when it will consider the interim report of the technical committee set up by it on the alleged misuse of the Israeli spyware on Indian citizens.
The top court agreed to hear the matter on Friday instead of Wednesday, after the technical committee sought more time to submit its findings in the case.
A day after the panel headed by former Supreme Court judge RV Raveendran submitted the interim report and sought more time, solicitor general Tushar Mehta requested the bench headed by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana to adjourn the date of hearing. The bench accepted his request.
The technical committee has reported the progress of its inquiry carried out in the past three-and-a-half months into the alleged snooping of phones of politicians, activists, journalists and lawyers. It moved an application seeking an extension to submit its final report.
The top court, examining a clutch of petitions filed by activists and persons whose phones were infected by the spyware, had formed the Raveendran committee in October last year and granted it eight weeks’ time to file a report.
The other members of the court-appointed committee include Naveen Kumar Chaudhary, professor cyber security and digital forensics, and dean, National Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat; Prabaharan P, professor at the school of engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kerala; and Ashwin Anil Gumaste, associate professor of computer science and engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.
The court had further directed that the committee will be assisted by former Indian Police Service officer Alok Joshi and Sundeep Oberoi, chairman of the subcommittee in the International Organization of Standardization, International Electro-Technical Commission and Joint Technical Committee, on matters involving technical and investigational aspects.
The top court had refused to allow the Centre to constitute the panel to probe alleged spying of Indian citizens and agreed to form a committee handpicked by it to examine the truth whether the allegations of spying are made out, and if true, at whose behest was the surveillance conducted. The petitions before the Court highlighted breach of their right to privacy and alleged that the highly sophisticated spyware Pegasus was a military software sold only to governments and government agencies.
