Hours after the Supreme Court-appointed technical panel said it found no proof of Pegasus, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demanded an apology from the Congress for accusing it of treason.

A report had emerged last year claiming surveillance by the central government by using Pegasus spyware. Citing the report, former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi said it was an attempt to crush Indian democracy.

However, the SC said no conclusive proof has come out about the use of Pegasus in 29 mobile phones examined by the technical committee. It said five of these phones were found to be affected by some malware, but it was not sure if it was Pegasus.

Following this, BJP spokesperson and former central minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the Congress party should not preach to them about spying. “When Late Pranab Mukherjee was Finance Minister, Congress had bugged his office. As per a reply to an RTI in 2013, around 9,000 phones and 500 email accounts were watched every month by the UPA government,” he said.

Prasad said the crucial point to note is that a high technical committee, supervised by a judge of the SC, has not found any Pegasus virus in any of the 29 mobiles submitted for the examination. “Will Rahul Gandhi apologize now for accusing us of treason?” he asked.

The SC  said the report is submitted in three parts – two reports of the technical committee and one report of the overseeing committee by a retired judge of the Supreme Court, Justice RV Raveendran.

The apex court said so far as technical committee reports are concerned it appears 29 phones were given to the committee and they have found some malware. “5 out of 29 phones had some malware, but not saying if it was due to Pegasus,” it said.

“Technical Committee concluded that these five phones have malware on poor cyber security, we will see how far we can release this report,” the court said.

In July last year, Rahul Gandhi said the Pegasus is classified by the Israeli state as a weapon and that weapon is supposed to be used against terrorists. “The Prime Minister and Home Minister have used this against the Indian state and against our institutions. They have used it politically, they have used it in Karnataka, they have used it to scuttle probes, they have used it against Supreme Court, they have used it against all the institutions of this country. The only word for this is treason. There is no other word for this,” Gandhi said.