The Centre on Monday informed the Supreme Court that the government will form a committee of experts to probe the Pegasus snooping allegations.
In an affidavit filed by the Additional Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the government denied all allegations that the spyware was used to target opposition leaders, journalists and others.
"A bare perusal of the captioned petition and other connected petitions makes it clear that the same are based on conjectures and surmises or on other unsubstantiated media reports or incomplete or uncorroborated material,” the government stated in the affidavit filed before a bench of Chief Justice N.V. Ramana and Justice Surya Kant.
During the brief hearing, the bench said it will take up the matter at the end of board of the day's business. On August 10, the top court had taken exception to "parallel proceedings and debates" on social media on the snooping row by some petitioners and said that there must be some discipline and they must have "some faith in the system".
The Pegasus issue had also overshadowed the monsoon session of Parliament, with the Lok Sabha getting adjourned sine die two days ahead of schedule. The monsoon session saw opposition parties demand from the government a discussion on the snooping scandal before any other business was taken up. An exception was made only for the politically crucial OBC Bill.
-with PTI inputs
