NEW DELHI, May 20: The Supreme Court on Friday said its technical committee had so far received and tested 29 mobile devices suspected to be infected by Israeli spyware Pegasus and gave it four weeks to submit a report to Justice R.V. Raveendran, a retired apex court judge.
Justice Raveendran had been overseeing the panel’s inquiry into reports that the government used the Israel-based military-grade spyware to snoop on journalists, parliamentarians, prominent citizens and even court staff.
Opening the interim report submitted by the committee in court, a Special Bench led by Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana said the committee had developed its own protocol/software to test the devices for malware. The committee also recorded the statements of petitioners, who had approached the court, journalists and other allegedly affected persons.
It has also contacted experts and agencies, including government ones, who could “potentially throw light on the subject of inquiry.” The committee has further undertaken a “public consultation exercise” to invite views and comments on the subject of inquiry, the CJI read out the interim report to lawyers, including senior advocate Kapil Sibal, for the petitioners, and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for the Centre.
The interim report said the committee had got a “large number of responses”. It was awaiting responses from the agencies. It said the process of analysing the responses was in progress. The committee said its investigation would be completed by the end of May 2022. Justice Raveendran, assisted by two experts, would then require another 15 days to study the recommendations of the technical committee and add views and comments.
The committee sought an extension of time till June 20, 2022 to complete the entire exercise and file a comprehensive report before the Supreme Court. “The process is on. We will give them time,” the CJI told the lawyers, who agreed. The court posted the case for hearing in July. Chief Justice Ramana is retiring by the end of August.
In October 27 last year, the court had constituted the technical committee while observing in its 46-page order that there was a “broad consensus that unauthorised surveillance/accessing of stored data from the phones and other devices of citizens for reasons other than nation’s security would be illegal, objectionable and a matter of concern”.
The court had, in October, listed several concerns which led it to form the committee and direct an independent inquiry. Several petitions, including one by senior journalists N. Ram and Shashi Kumar, had sought a fair probe into the allegations.
(Manas Dasgupta)