Union govt tells SC it will set up panel to probe Pegasus charges

The Union Ministry of Information Technology informed the Supreme Court on Monday, August 16, that a committee of experts will be formed to probe the alleged Pegasus snooping scandal. The revelation was made in an affidavit submitted to the court while the apex court was hearing a batch of petitions, including those filed by the Editors Guild of India and senior journalists N Ram and Sashi Kumar, seeking independent probe into the alleged Pegasus snooping matter. The Union government has said, “No one was snooped using Pegasus,” and has said that the allegations made in the petitions are "based on conjectures and surmises.”

The counsel representing the Union government said that there is nothing further to be clarified about questions over the alleged Pegasus scandal as it had been discussed in the Parliament and that the Union IT Minister had already issued a detailed statement in both Houses. "It is, however, submitted that with a view to dispel any wrong narrative spread by certain vested interests and with an object of examining the issues raised, the Union of India will constitute a Committee of Experts in the field which will go in to all aspects of the issue," the affidavit submitted by the Union government said. The affidavit was filed ahead of the hearing in the Supreme Court. A bench of Chief Justice NV Ramana and Justices Suryakant and Aniruddha Bose will continue hearing the matter.

On August 10, the top court had taken exception over "parallel proceedings and debates" on social media by some petitioners who have sought independent probe into the alleged Pegasus snooping issue and said there must be some discipline and they must have "some faith in the system".

The bench had said that it expects that petitioners who are interested in the matter would answer whatever queries the court would put to them by way of proper debate "in the court and not outside".

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had told the court that he needs instructions from the government on the batch of pleas.

The apex court is hearing a batch of pleas, including the one filed by the Editors Guild of India, seeking independent probe into the alleged Pegasus snooping matter.

They are related to reports of alleged snooping by government agencies on eminent citizens, politicians and scribes by using Israeli firm NSO's spyware Pegasus.

An international media consortium has reported that over 300 verified Indian mobile phone numbers were on the list of potential targets for surveillance using Pegasus spyware.

Earlier, during the hearing of the matter, the top court had said that allegations of Pegasus related snooping are "serious in nature" if reports on them are correct.

It had also asked the petitioners whether they had made any efforts to file a criminal complaint on this.

The apex court, which had asked the petitioners to serve the copies of the pleas to the Centre, had also questioned why the matter has suddenly cropped up now when it had come to light way back in 2019.

Editors Guild of India has sought in its plea that a special investigation team be set up to conduct a probe into reported surveillance of journalists and others.

With PTI inputs