New Delhi, Sep 23 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Thursday said that it will pronounce its interim order next week on a batch of pleas seeking an independent probe into the Pegasus snooping matter.

A bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana said the order, which was to be pronounced earlier, will now be delivered next week.

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The top court on September 13 had reserved its order, saying it only wanted to know whether or not the Centre used the Pegasus spyware through illegal methods to allegedly snoop on citizens.

The Centre had stoutly refused to file an affidavit citing national security on pleas seeking an independent probe into the snooping row.

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The pleas seeking an independent probe are related to reports of alleged snooping by government agencies on eminent citizens, politicians and scribes by using Israeli firm NSO's spyware Pegasus.

An international media consortium has reported that over 300 verified Indian mobile phone numbers were on the list of potential targets for surveillance using Pegasus spyware.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)