NEW DELHI: The Pegasus surveillance case is now listed for hearing before the Supreme Court on March 7, after twice not put on the board despite the listing ordered on February 25 and again on February 28. This will be the first sitting of the top court since after October 27 when a 3-member panel of cyber experts was set up to probe the spying allegations.
An early hearing would have caused an embarrassment to the Modi government in the wake of the Assembly elections, in view of the recent revelations by The New York Times that the Israeli Pegasus spyware was bought by the defence ministry in 2017 during Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Israel, contrary to the government’s repeated denials of any hand in the alleged surveillance.
By coincidence, the Supreme Court hearing is taking place next Monday when the seventh and last round of polling is slated and any revelations in the hearing won’t affect the polls as all that is left is the counting of votes on March 10.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India N V Ramana on February 22 had agreed to a plea of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to defer its listing on February 23 since he was tied up that day with another money laundering case and ordered its listing on February 25, but the case did not come up that day, nor on revised date of February 28.
Pending before the Court is an application to extend the term of the experts’ panel since it could do little as very few people had come forward to depose before it or submit for scrutiny their devices allegedly snooped.
Former Apex Court judge R V Ravindran is monitoring the experts on cyber security, digital forensics and networks tasked by the Supreme Court to “inquire, investigate and determine” whether the Pegasus spyware was used to snoop on the citizens. The judge’s monitoring panel includes former IPS officer Alok Joshi and Sundeep Oberoi, chairman of the sub-committee in International Organisation of Standardisation/International Electro-Technical Commission/Joint Technical Committee.
