SC extends time for submitting report on Pegasus spyware
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New Delhi: A bench headed by Chief Justice of India N V Ramana of the Supreme Court has extended the deadline given to the court-appointed technical and supervisory committees to look into the Pegasus row. The committee had earlier requested for an extension saying that the 29 ' inflected' phons need to be further examined for Pegasus, stating that the process would take more time, atleast until the end of the month.
The bench further stated that Justice R V Raveendran, a former SC judge supervising the exercise would look into the subitted report, and might take an extra 15 days to add his observations and comments.
"29 mobile devices are being examined. They have developed their own software. They have also issued notices to agencies including government and journalists and invited objections too…It has prayed for time to submit its report Now it is under process. We will give them time," the CJI said.
The bench, comprising Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli had previously asked the the committee to speed up the process of examining the mobile devices and to send the report to the overseeing judge.
The request for delaying the report was allowed and the next hearing would be in July.
According to The Indian Express, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, who is appearing for the petitioners, urged the court to make the report public. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, however, opposed it saying that it was only an interim report.
The court had appointed the committee to investigate the matter on October 27 last year. Alok Joshi, former IPS officer (1976 batch) and Sundeep Oberoi, chairman, sub-committee in (International Organisation of Standardisation/International Electro-Technical Commission/Joint Technical Committee), assist Justice Raveendran in the probe.
Naveen Kumar Chaudhary, Professor (Cyber Security and Digital Forensics) and Dean, National Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, Prabaharan P., Professor (School of Engineering), Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri, Kerala and Ashwin Anil Gumaste, Institute Chair Associate Professor (Computer Science and Engineering), Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Maharashtra are the three technical members of the team.
