SC says no conclusive evidence found on use of Pegasus

Chief Justice NV Ramana said that the Supreme Court-appointed committee, which probed allegations of unauthorised use of Israeli NSO Group’s Pegasus software for surveillance, found no conclusive evidence on use of the spyware in the phones examined by it.

However, it said that the Central government “has not cooperated” with the panel. The Bench, headed by CJI, also said that the committee examined 29 phones but did not find any conclusive evidence of Pegasus being used in any of them.

The CJI said, citing the report, “Based on the above, it is concluded that 5 of the 29 phones may have had some infection due to a malware or due to poor cyber hygiene and data available is limited and hence inconclusive to determine…”

The bench, which opened the report in open court, pointed out that it was in three parts. The first part answered the court’s queries, including “whether…Pegasus…was used on phones or other devices of the citizens of India to access stored data, eavesdrop on conversations, intercept information and/ or for any other purposes not explicitly stated herein?”