A Supreme Court’s direction that activists Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira should “pair” their mobile phones with that of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe officer as a condition for grant of their bail in the Bhima Koregaon case has come barely a week after another Bench of the court flagged whether a bail condition imposed by the Delhi High Court on an accused to share the Google PIN of his location with the investigating officer offended his fundamental right to personal liberty, life and privacy.
A Bench headed by Justice Aniruddha Bose on July 28 ordered Mr. Gonsalves and Mr. Ferreira to keep the location status of their mobile phones active 24 hours a day. “Their phones shall be paired with that of the Investigating Officer of the NIA to enable him, at any given time, to identify the appellants’ exact location,” the court directed.
