Supreme Court says no conclusive proof of Pegasus spyware in phones examined
The Supreme Court-appointed technical committee, which probed allegations of unauthorised use of Israeli NSO Group spyware Pegasus software for surveillance, examined 29 phones and found some malware in 5 of them, said a bench headed by Chief Justice of India N V Ramana Thursday.
“In 5 phones they found some malware, but it doesn’t mean it is a malware of Pegasus,” said CJI N V Ramana, who is heading the three-judge bench, after perusing the report submitted by the three-member technical committee.
CJI Ramana also said the government had not cooperated with the committee and had adopted the same stand that it had taken before the SC, in the panel’s proceedings too.
The bench, also comprising Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli, which perused the report of the technical committee as well as that of the supervising judge Justice (retired) R V Raveendran said it will upload the report of Justice Raveendran on its webpage.
As regards the technical committee report, it said some of those who had given their phones to the committee had requested that the report should not be made public as there may be sensitive data. The bench said it will decide what parts of the technical committee report can be made public.
Justice Surya Kant said, “We will go through the report and whatever content we find can be placed in the public domain, we will share with you that part”.
Ruling on a batch of 12 petitions, which sought an independent probe into the alleged illegal use of Pegasus, the court said, “The Petitioners have placed on record certain material that prima facie merits consideration by this Court. There has been no specific denial of any of the facts averred by the Petitioners by the Respondent-Union of India. There has only been an omnibus and vague denial in the ‘limited affidavit’ filed by the Respondent-Union of India, which cannot be sufficient. In such circumstances, we have no option but to accept the prima facie case made out by the Petitioners to examine the allegations made”.
The court turned down the government’s request to allow it to set up the committee stating that allowing the request “would violate the settled judicial principle against bias, i.e., that ‘justice must not only be done, but also be seen to be done’.”
On October 27, 2021, a bench of CJI N V Ramana, Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli had appointed the technical committee to conduct an inquiry into allegations of unauthorised use of Pegasus software for surveillance. It also appointed Justice (retired) Raveendran to oversee the functioning of the committee. He was to be assisted by two other experts— former IPS officer Alok Joshi and cyber security expert Dr Sundeep Oberoi.
The bench set up the technical committee comprising Dr Naveen Kumar Chaudhary, Dean of National Forensic Sciences University in Gandhinagar; Dr Prabaharan P, Professor at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in Kerala; and Dr Ashwin Anil Gumaste, Institute Chair Associate Professor at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.
