Nithyakalyani Narayanan. V
On July 24th, the Supreme Court declared that it would consider whether the bail condition imposed on an accused by the Delhi High Court could be permitted under Article 21 of the Constitution. The condition was to drop his Google pin location from his mobile phone to the Investigation Officer in charge throughout the period of his bail.
The Court was hearing the case filed by the Enforcement Directorate against the Delhi High Court order which granted bail to the internal auditor of Shakti Bhog Foods Limited (SBFL) in a money laundering case involving bank loan fraud of several crores.
Additional Solicitor General SV Raju argued that the accused should not have been granted bail in this case. The counsel for the accused counteracted that the investigation is still going on and that the trial will not commence soon.
The division bench of Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Sanjay Karol issued notice and posted to matter for 3rd October: “Apart from merits of the matter, we have to seriously consider whether condition D, incorporated while granting bail can be a condition of bail.”
Justice Abhay S Oka opined that making the accused share his Google location to the IO, would amount to surveillance and is against Article 21: “Read clause D, can this be done under Article 21? Applicant is to drop google pin location from his mobile phone to IO, so IO will keep a track, because of this he will be under constant surveillance.”
Clause (d) of the bail condition stated that “(d) The applicant shall drop a Google pin location from his mobile phone to the IO concerned which shall be kept operational throughout his bail.”
An FIR was registered for financial irregularity and siphoning of funds in relation to credit facilities obtained by SBFL from a consortium of banks led by the SBI and causing an estimated loss of Rs. 3269.42 crores.
The defendant argued that he was not named as an accused in the FIR and that he was not the internal auditor of SBFL during the period of enquiry.
Name of the case: Directorate of Enforcement v. Raman Bhuraria
Bench: Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Sanjay Karol
Click here to access the judgment.