The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice before admission to the Central Government in a batch of petitions seeking probe into the Pegasus snooping controversy.
The court will take up hearing on the petitions after 10 days, by which time the Centre has to give its response. The petitions sought a court-monitored inquiry by a Special Investigation Team or a judicial probe into reports of alleged snooping of activists, politicians, journalists and constitutional bodies using the Pegasus spyware.
The Supreme Court decision is considered to be a serious setback to the Modi government, which has been citing national security issues to deny a straight answer as to whether the government had been using the spyware belonging to the Israeli company.