Breaking: Supreme Court Appointed Committee Finds No Proof Of Use Of Pegasus Spyware

The Supreme Court today read out certain portions of the report of the Technical Committee constituted by the Court to probe into the Pegasus allegations.

The Bench of Chief Justice N. V. Ramana, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Hima Kohli said that the Committee has found that 5 out of the 29 phones submitted before the Committee were infected with some kind of malware, which does not mean that it was Pegasus. The Court read from the report that the presence of the malware could be because of "poor hygiene".

The Bench also said as per the report, the Center did not cooperate with the probe and that it took the same stand that it took before the Court. The Center had taken a stand that the issue is a matter that touches national security.

The Court said that it will examine whether the report can be released in public and to what extent.

On the previous hearing, the Court had read the interim report that was given by the Committee. The Court had noted that the Technical Committee needs time to complete the investigation and 29 devices have been examined by the Committee till now, the committee has also issued notice to the stakeholders.

The controversy regarding the Israeli Spyware Pegasus erupted in 2018 when several media houses published reports of the Pegasus software being used for surveillance on various journalists, politicians and activists etc.

The Apex Court, after considering the matter had constituted a Technical Committee to be headed by former Judge of the Supreme Court, Justice R. V. Raveendran and the Committee had submitted its interim report.

In a public notice issued in February, the Technical Committee appointed by the Supreme Court had stated that only two persons have produced their mobile instruments for taking digital images.