The Supreme Court-appointed high-level technical committee supervised by Justice R V Raveendran has submitted an interim report detailing the progress of inquiry into alleged use of military-grade spyware Pegasus to snoop on the phones of activists, journalists, politicians and lawyers.

Nearly four months into the inquiry, the committee apparently expressed disappointment with a large number of activists, who had taken up the task of moving the

SC for an SIT probe into the Pegasus controversy, for not submitting their phones for verification of their claims, resulting in a slow progress towards reaching any con- clusion, sources told media.

“Only a few of the persons, whose phones were claimed to have been infected by Pegasus spyware, submitted their mobile phones for verification to the high-level committee,” a source said.

A bench of CJI N V Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli would on February 23 consider the report and an application by the Raveendran Committee.

Sources said the Committee has sought more time to complete the probe.

On October 27, the SC had set up the technical expert panel headed by Justice Ra- veendran, a former SC judge, to inquire into the allegations that Israeli military-grade spyware, which is sold only to governments of various countries, had been installed surreptitiously in the mobile phones of journalists, activists, politicians and advocates in breach of right to privacy and to put a chilling effect on the right to free speech.

The SC had said that the inquiry would be completed expeditiously but had not set any time limit for its completion. For the Union government, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had said that the Centre has nothing to hide and was ready to set up a technical committee comprising experts who are completely independent of the government. But the court had decided to set up the committee itself.

However, the Centre had refused to file a detailed affidavit narrating the spyware it uses. Explaining the Centre’s predicament, Mehta had said filing of an affidavit would put in the public domain details of software used by the government agencies to intercept communications between enemies of India and terror organisations with their sleeper cells.

(With inputs from agencies)