Fact checker: Did N Ram's petition before the Supreme Court say that California court order made note of Indian Pegasus targets?

Post the hearing of the Pegasus petitions filed before the Supreme Court today, social media was rife with speculation on whether the Bench of Chief Justice of India NV Ramana and Justice Surya Kant was misled on a particular fact..During the hearing, CJI Ramana asked Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for N Ram, the Director of The Hindu Group and one of the petitioners in the case,"You say in an affidavit that some Indian journalists figure in the snooping list. Where did you get it from? This is in the affidavit by N Ram and says that California Court names the Indian journalists who had their phones tapped. California court does not say it.".Another journalist reported:.The California court order being referred to is a judgment passed by the District Court of the Northern District of California on July 16 last year in a motion to dismiss the suit filed by WhatsApp against Israeli company NSO, which developed the Pegasus software.When the Pegasus controversy first surfaced in 2019, WhatsApp had filed a suit in the California court alleging that NSO sent malware using WhatsApp’s system to approximately 1,400 mobile phones and devices to infect those devices for the purpose of surveilling the users of those phones and devices..Indian lawyers among those targeted in WhatsApp surveillance fiasco.Dismissing NSO's plea, the California court had ruled last year,“[w]hen Defendants (NSO) provide those support services, they do so entirely at the direction of their government customers, and Defendants follow those directions completely...Thus, it appears defendants retained some role in conducting the intentional act, even if it was at the direction of their customers…".However, the 45-page judgment of the Court did not make any mention of Indian journalists who were targeted by the Pegasus spyware..Defending the barrage of allegations, N Ram on his own part clarified that his petition does not cite the California court order as having made references to Indian journalists..And a perusal of his petition filed in the apex court reveals that he is right. The only reference made in this context is:"It is also pertinent to note that the NSO Group, the creators of the Pegasus software, had been sued in the United States District Court of Northern California by Whatsapp Inc., which accused the company of targeting the mobile phones of 1400 (one thousand and four hundred) users including more than a dozen journalists from India with malware...".Thus, it is evident that Ram did not imply that the California court had mentioned Indian journalists whose numbers were potentially put under surveillance through the spyware..However, a look at the suit filed by WhatsApp in the California court reveals that there is no allegation of Indian users being affected by the spyware as stated in the petition."Between approximately April 29, 2019, and May 10, 2019, Defendants caused their malicious code to be transmitted over WhatsApp servers in an effort to infect approximately 1,400 Target Devices. The Target Users included attorneys, journalists, human rights activists, political dissidents, diplomats, and other senior foreign government officials. The Target Users had WhatsApp numbers with country codes from several countries, including the Kingdom of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Mexico. According to public reporting, Defendants’ clients include, but are not limited to, government agencies in the Kingdom of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Mexico as well as private entities.".On confirming with lawyers for the petitioner, it was revealed that the reference to Indian journalists in Ram's petition was based on a report in The Guardian on the California court order. In that report, the UK-based publication cited research conducted by Citizen Lab, which claims that Indian journalists are among the 1,400 users who were targeted. The story reads,"WhatsApp and research collaborators at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, alerted the 1,400 users who they say were targeted in the attack last year, prompting many of the individuals to come forward. They included more than a dozen journalists in India, prominent journalists and human rights campaigners in Morocco..."Thus, in all likelihood, after CJI Ramana perused the petition, he checked the California court order which did not have the reference to the Indian journalists, and thereafter quizzed Sibal on the same..[Read the California Court order].[Read N Ram's petition].[Read the suit filed by WhatsApp]