Pegasus Case: Supreme Court To Consider Centre's Proposal For Forming Expert Committee On Tuesday

Pegasus Case: The Centre has termed the espionage allegations as baseless while also proposing to form an expert committee to clear the suspicion of the petitioners.

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New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear the Pegasus case on Tuesday. In this case, the government has proposed to set up an expert committee on its behalf for investigation. In the last hearing, the court had issued a notice to the government saying it would consider the order after seeing the government's response.

15 petitions are pending in the Supreme Court for an impartial inquiry into the Pegasus case. The petitions are filed by many renowned personalities including senior journalist N. Ram, Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas, former Union minister Yashwant Sinha.

The Centre has been accused of spying on politicians, journalists, former judges and ordinary citizens through Israeli spyware. On August 17, the court had postponed the hearing for 10 days, giving time for a detailed reply to be filed by the Centre.

The Centre has termed the espionage allegations as baseless while also proposing to form an expert committee to clear the suspicion of the petitioners. The petitioners had opposed Centre's brief reply in the last hearing. They had sought a detailed affidavit by the government to reveal if it used the Pegasus spyware or not.

In the last hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, had expressed his inability to give a detailed affidavit saying, "The petitioners want that government to tell which software it uses and which it does not. In the interest of national security, all this cannot be stated as affidavits. If in the future, any website publishes news on the use of military equipment, will we publicly disclose all those things?"

The Solicitor General had emphasised the formation of an expert committee, saying, "The government is not saying that it will not tell anyone anything, but some information cannot be disclosed publicly by filing affidavits. Let the Government of India form a committee. The government will tell everything to the committee. That committee will report to the court."