The Supreme Court announced orally that it would form a technical expert group to investigate the Pegasus spying scandal. The Supreme Court also stated that an order on a group of petitions requesting an independent investigation into the matter would be issued next week.
The order, which was supposed to be handed in earlier, will instead be issued next week, according to a bench led by Chief Justice N V Ramana. “We will be able to finalise the members of the competent expert panel and issue our orders perhaps next week,” the court stated.
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The remark is significant since the Centre had previously promised to form an expert group on its own to investigate complaints about suspected phone spying. On September 13, the Supreme Court deferred its decision, stating it needed to know if the Centre unlawfully used the Pegasus malware to spy on citizens illegally. The Centre had flatly refused to provide an affidavit claiming national security in response to petitions calling for an independent investigation into the spying scandal.
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The requests for an impartial investigation are in response to accusations of government agencies eavesdropping on prominent individuals, lawmakers, and scribes using Israeli firm NSO’s malware Pegasus. According to an international media consortium, over 300 confirmed Indian mobile phone numbers were on a list of possible targets for monitoring using Pegasus malware.
