New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday said it will set up a technical committee to look into allegations that the Pegasus software was used for spying on journalists, politicians, businesspersons and several others, Live Law reported.
Chief Justice NV Ramana said that he will pass the order on constituting the technical committee next week. Ramana made the comment verbally to senior advocate Chander Uday Singh during the hearing of another case.
Singh is the counsel of one of the petitioners seeking an investigation into the Pegasus row.
The surveillance allegations pertain to a leaked list, featuring 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.
According to the Wire, which focused on the Indian portion of the list, “the numbers of those in the database include over 40 journalists, three major opposition figures, one constitutional authority, two serving ministers in the Narendra Modi government, current and former heads and officials of security organisations and scores of businesspersons”.
On Thursday, Ramana said that he wanted to pass the order on setting up the technical committee this week. However, some of the experts whom the court wanted to appoint in the committee expressed personal difficulties in joining the panel. The chief justice said that the court will soon finalise on the members of the panel.
On September 13, the court had reserved its order on petitions seeking an investigation into the allegations after the Centre refused to file an affidavit. Scroll. In
