WhatsApp snooping: Activist Govindacharya withdraws plea from SC

Activist and RSS ideologue K N Govindacharya on Monday withdrew his petition seeking registration of FIR and an NIA probe against Facebook, WhatsApp and NSO Group for violating the privacy of Indians, in the wake of the alleged snooping by them.

The petition was withdrawn after a bench headed by Chief Justice of India S A Bobde asked Govindacharya to do so, citing several mistakes in it.

Facebook-owned WhatsApp had last month said that various Indian journalists and human rights activists were spied upon by unnamed entities using an Israeli spyware Pegasus developed by an Israeli company named NSO.

The petitioner had approached the top court seeking direction to initiate perjury proceedings against WhatsApp for "misleading court in a case by claiming that user-data is fully encrypted and no one including WhatsApp has the key".