<div dir="ltr"><p>The Supreme Court said on Friday that a technical committee appointed by it to probe the Pegasus snooping case is likely to submit its report by the end of this month. The final report by the Supreme Court-appointed committee is expected by June after examination by the supervising judge, Justice R V Raveendran.</p><p>The top court granted further time to the committee to finalise its report.</p><p>Taking up a batch of Public Interest Litigations, a Bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Hima Kohli pointed out that the court has received an interim report from the committee, which examined 29 mobile devices.</p><p>“They have examined 29 mobiles. They have developed their own software. They have also issued notices to agencies including government and journalists. It has sought time for submitting its report. Now, it is under process. We will give them time,” the Bench said.</p><p>The Bench, however, refrained from passing any order on a petition filed by senior advocate Kapil Sibal on behalf of the petitioners, to make the interim report available to them.</p><p>Solicitor General Tushar Mehta opposed the plea, saying it was only an interim report.</p><p>The court would now consider the matter in July. It directed the committee to expedite the examination of mobile devices, and send its report to Justice Raveendran, who would submit the final report. </p><p>On October 27, 2021, the top court had formed an independent experts committee, to be supervised by Justice Raveendran, to examine charges of surveyance.</p><p>The court had asked the experts panel to ascertain if any governmental agency had used the Pegasus spyware on Indian citizens, and what was the law/ legal procedure invoked for such a surveillance deployment.</p><p>On July 18, 2021, an international investigative consortium had reported that many Indian ministers, politicians, activists, businessmen and journalists were among the 50,000 numbers that were potentially targeted by the Israeli company NSO Group’s phone hacking software. </p></div>
<div dir="ltr"><p>The Supreme Court said on Friday that a technical committee appointed by it to probe the Pegasus snooping case is likely to submit its report by the end of this month. The final report by the Supreme Court-appointed committee is expected by June after examination by the supervising judge, Justice R V Raveendran.</p><p>The top court granted further time to the committee to finalise its report.</p><p>Taking up a batch of Public Interest Litigations, a Bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Hima Kohli pointed out that the court has received an interim report from the committee, which examined 29 mobile devices.</p><p>“They have examined 29 mobiles. They have developed their own software. They have also issued notices to agencies including government and journalists. It has sought time for submitting its report. Now, it is under process. We will give them time,” the Bench said.</p><p>The Bench, however, refrained from passing any order on a petition filed by senior advocate Kapil Sibal on behalf of the petitioners, to make the interim report available to them.</p><p>Solicitor General Tushar Mehta opposed the plea, saying it was only an interim report.</p><p>The court would now consider the matter in July. It directed the committee to expedite the examination of mobile devices, and send its report to Justice Raveendran, who would submit the final report. </p><p>On October 27, 2021, the top court had formed an independent experts committee, to be supervised by Justice Raveendran, to examine charges of surveyance.</p><p>The court had asked the experts panel to ascertain if any governmental agency had used the Pegasus spyware on Indian citizens, and what was the law/ legal procedure invoked for such a surveillance deployment.</p><p>On July 18, 2021, an international investigative consortium had reported that many Indian ministers, politicians, activists, businessmen and journalists were among the 50,000 numbers that were potentially targeted by the Israeli company NSO Group’s phone hacking software. </p></div>
