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Allegations of Pegasus related snooping are “serious in nature” if reports on them are correct, the Supreme Court said on Thursday and asked the petitioners seeking probe into the Israeli spyware matter whether they have made any efforts to file criminal complaint on this.
A bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justice Surya Kant stopped short of issuing notice on the pleas and took exception that one of the petitions has made an individual (Prime Minister) a party.
The apex court, which asked the petitioners to serve the copies of the pleas to the Centre so that somebody from the government is present before it on August 10 to accept notice, also questioned why the matter has suddenly cropped up now when it had come to light way back in 2019.
The bench told senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who was appearing for senior journalists N Ram and Sashi Kumar, that petitioners in the matter are educated and knowledgeable persons and they should have made efforts to put more material together.
“Before going into all that, we want to ask certain questions. No doubt the allegations are serious in nature if the reports in the newspapers are correct,” the bench observed.
