NEW DELHI: The Centre on Monday filed a two-page affidavit on Pegasus in the Supreme Court and ‘unequivocally’ denied all allegations made against the government by the petitioners.
The Centre said PILs by N Ram, Yashwant Sinha, Editors Guild and 7 others have made allegations “based on conjectures and surmises or on other unsubstantiated media reports or incomplete or uncorroborated material”.
Such material cannot be the basis for filing PILs, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said.
The government will soon set up a Committee of Experts to examine all issues raised in the Pegasus controversy to dispel any wrong narrative spread by certain vested interests.
A bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and justices Suryakant and Aniruddha Bose were hearing the matter.
On August 10, the top court had taken exception over “parallel proceedings and debates” on social media by some petitioners who have sought independent probe into the alleged Pegasus snooping issue and said there must be some discipline and they must have “some faith in the system”.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had told the court that he needs instructions from the government on the batch of pleas.
The apex court was hearing a batch of pleas, including the one filed by the Editors Guild of India, seeking independent probe into the alleged Pegasus snooping matter.
They are related to reports of alleged snooping by government agencies on eminent citizens, politicians and scribes by using Israeli firm NSO‘s spyware Pegasus.
An international media consortium has reported that over 300 verified Indian mobile phone numbers were on the list of potential targets for surveillance using Pegasus spyware.
Earlier, during the hearing of the matter, the top court had said that allegations of Pegasus related snooping are “serious in nature” if reports on them are correct.
It had also asked the petitioners whether they had made any efforts to file a criminal complaint on this.
Earlier, the apex court, which had asked the petitioners to serve the copies of the pleas to the Centre, had also questioned why the matter has suddenly cropped up now when it had come to light way back in 2019.
Editors Guild of India has sought in its plea that a special investigation team be set up to conduct a probe into reported surveillance of journalists and others.
(With agency inputs)
The Centre said PILs by N Ram, Yashwant Sinha, Editors Guild and 7 others have made allegations “based on conjectures and surmises or on other unsubstantiated media reports or incomplete or uncorroborated material”.
Such material cannot be the basis for filing PILs, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said.
The government will soon set up a Committee of Experts to examine all issues raised in the Pegasus controversy to dispel any wrong narrative spread by certain vested interests.
A bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and justices Suryakant and Aniruddha Bose were hearing the matter.
On August 10, the top court had taken exception over “parallel proceedings and debates” on social media by some petitioners who have sought independent probe into the alleged Pegasus snooping issue and said there must be some discipline and they must have “some faith in the system”.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had told the court that he needs instructions from the government on the batch of pleas.
The apex court was hearing a batch of pleas, including the one filed by the Editors Guild of India, seeking independent probe into the alleged Pegasus snooping matter.
They are related to reports of alleged snooping by government agencies on eminent citizens, politicians and scribes by using Israeli firm NSO‘s spyware Pegasus.
An international media consortium has reported that over 300 verified Indian mobile phone numbers were on the list of potential targets for surveillance using Pegasus spyware.
Earlier, during the hearing of the matter, the top court had said that allegations of Pegasus related snooping are “serious in nature” if reports on them are correct.
It had also asked the petitioners whether they had made any efforts to file a criminal complaint on this.
Earlier, the apex court, which had asked the petitioners to serve the copies of the pleas to the Centre, had also questioned why the matter has suddenly cropped up now when it had come to light way back in 2019.
Editors Guild of India has sought in its plea that a special investigation team be set up to conduct a probe into reported surveillance of journalists and others.
(With agency inputs)