Center’s stand on Pegasus not final yet

On August 17, the Center told the apex court that it had nothing to add to its three-page affidavit on this. pegasus snooping The case was registered on August 16 that neither confirmed nor denied the use of military-grade spyware to hack the phones of ministers, politicians, businessmen, activists and journalists. Following this, a bench headed by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana said it would consider passing certain orders on constitution of an expert committee in the next hearing.

But on Monday, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the bench, also comprising Justices Surya Kant and AS Bopanna, that the government is yet to take a final call on filing the second affidavit, as suggested by the court earlier.

When the matter was raised, Mehta said that there was some difficulty in deciding the additional affidavit as he could not consult the authorities concerned. “There is some difficulty with respect to the call on filing of the second affidavit. Please, consider accommodating me by Thursday or Monday,” the Solicitor General requested the bench.

To this the CJI said, “But you have already filed the affidavit.

Mehta replied: “Yes, my God. We filed an affidavit and this court asked whether we wanted to file another affidavit. I could not be sure of that stand. For some reason, some officials were not there; then I couldn’t get it, etc. It (stand) couldn’t be found.” Mehta requested to adjourn the matter till Thursday or Monday.

Journalist N. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing in the petition filed by Ram and Shashi Kumar, said there is no objection if the government is reconsidering its earlier stand on filing the comprehensive affidavit.

Due to this, the hearing of the case was adjourned till September 13.

The Pegasus controversy began on 18 July after an international investigative consortium reported that the phones of Indian ministers, politicians, activists, businessmen and journalists were among 50,000 people who were potentially exposed to Pegasus, the Israeli company NSO Group’s phone hacking software. was targeted by.

According to this consortium, Pegasus can switch on the target’s phone camera and microphone, as well as access data on the device, effectively turning the phone into a pocket spy.

Responding to a slew of petitions filed by lawyers, politicians, journalists and civil rights activists, the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology filed a three-page affidavit on August 16, refusing to confirm or deny that whether it used Israeli Pegasus spyware for surveillance. Indians.