The Supreme Court on Wednesday appointed a three-member technical committee to investigate the allegations that the Pegasus software was used for spying on Indian citizens, including journalists and political leaders, Live Law reported.

The committee comprises professors of cybersecurity and computers science Naveen Kumar Chaudhary, Prabaharan P and Anil Gumaste, Chief Justice NV Ramana said in the order.

Former Supreme Court judge RV Raveendran will oversee the functioning of the committee along with former Research and Analysis Wing chief Alok Joshi and cybersecurity expert Sundeep Oberoi.

The court asked the committee to investigate the allegations “expeditiously” and listed the matter for next hearing after eight weeks.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Ramana said that restriction on privacy can only be imposed in matters of national security.

“It is undeniable that under surveillance it affects the right and freedom of people and how it is exercised,” he said. “It also about freedom of press and the important role played by them, such technology may have chilling effect on right to press.”

The surveillance allegations pertain to a leaked list of more than 50,000 phone numbers, that was accessed by Paris-based media nonprofit Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International. As part of the Pegasus Project, the organisations had shared the list with 17 news outlets across the world.

According to the Wire, which focused on the Indian portion of the list, the potential targets in India include Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, former Election Commissioner of India Ashok Lavasa, Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and Prahlad Singh Patel, industrialist Anil Ambani and former Central Bureau of Investigation Director Alok Verma.

On September 13, the Supreme Court had reserved its order on the petitions after the Centre refused to file an affidavit in the case.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had said that filing an affidavit on whether the spyware was used will “not serve national interest”. He had also argued that the allegations of spying “cannot be a subject matter of an affidavit or debate in court or public discourse”.

Earlier, the Centre had also cited national security as the reason for being unable to divulge if the Pegasus spyware had been used.

While hearing a separate matter on September 23, Chief Justice NV Ramana had told one of the lawyers in the Pegasus case, Chander Uday Singh, that the court would pass an order in a week to set up a technical committee to investigate the allegations.

At that time, Ramana added that the order was delayed because some of the members it had shortlisted for the committee were unavailable due to personal reasons. However, the court has not take up the matter since Ramana made this oral observation.

At the first hearing in the case on August 5, the Supreme Court had observed that the allegations of surveillance, if correct, were serious in nature.

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Pegasus case: What you need to know about the Supreme Court’s inquiry into the illegal spyware

Pegasus surveillance allegations

The spyware is licensed to governments around the world by Israeli cyber intelligence companyNSO Group. The company insists that it licences its software only to “vetted governments” with good human-rights records and that Pegasus is intended to target criminals.

But, the revelations have raised questions about whether the Indian government was illegally snooping on its critics.

Responding to the allegations, Vaishnaw, the Union information technology minister, had told Parliament on July 19 that illegal surveillance was not possible in India.

In August, the Ministry of Defence had told the Rajya Sabha that it has “not had any transaction with NSO Group Technologies”.