Keep GPS Of Mobile Active Always; Pair It With NIA Officer: SC Directs Shoma Sen While Granting Her Bail In Elgar Parishad Case

The Supreme Court, while granting Bail to Shoma Sen in connection with the Elgar Parishad case, directed her to keep the location status (GPS) of her mobile phone active, twenty-four hours a day.

It further directed that her phone shall be paired with that of the Investigating Officer of the NIA to enable him, at any given time, to identify her exact location.

Taking cognizance of the composite effect of delay in framing charge, period of detention undergone, and the nature of allegations against her vis-à-vis the materials available before the Court, the Apex Court had granted bail to Shoma Sen in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence case.

In that context, the Bench of Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Augustine George Masih observed that, "any form of deprival of liberty results in breach of Article 21 of the Constitution of India and must be justified on the ground of being reasonable, following a just and fair procedure and such deprival must be proportionate in the facts of a given case. These would be the overarching principles which the law Courts would have to apply while testing prosecution’s plea of pre-trial detention, both at investigation and post-chargesheet stage."

It was further said that, "taking cognizance of the composite effect of delay in framing charge, period of detention undergone by her, the nature of allegations against her vis-à-vis the materials available before this Court at this stage in addition to her age and medical condition, we do not think she ought to be denied the privilege of being enlarged on bail pending further process subsequent to issue of chargesheets against her in the subject-case."

Senior Counsel Anand Grover, along with others, appeared for the appellant, while ASG KM Nataraj, along with others, appeared for the respondent.

Shoma Sen was arrested on June 6, 2018, in relation to the Bhima Koregaon Elgar Parishad case.

Despite her bail plea being denied by both the Trial Court and Bombay High Court, she approached the Supreme Court. Sen contended that there was no evidence linking her to the case under the UAPA or establishing her alleged ties with the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). She further claimed that the material supposedly found on her electronic devices by the agency had been planted.

The Apex Court found no reasonable ground for believing that the accusations against the appellant for crimes under the UAPA Act were true. In light of the same, the Court set aside the impugned judgment and directed that the appellant be released on bail on certain special conditions.

Among seven special conditions, the Court mandated that during the period where the appellant was enlarged on bail, "the appellant shall keep the location status (GPS) of her mobile phone active, twenty-four hours a day, and her phone 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."

Appearances:

Appellant: Senior Counsel Anand Grover, Counsels Paras Nath Singh, Rohin Bhatt, AoR Nupur Kumar.

Respondent: ASG K. M. Nataraj, Counsels Aniruddha Joshi, Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Bharat Bagla, Sourav Singh, Aditya Krishna, Preet S. Phanse, Omkar Deshpande, Aadarsh Dubey, Sharath Nambiar, Kanu Agarwal, Annam Venkatesh, Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Chitransh Sharma, Indra Bhakar, Vinayak Sharma, Vatsal Joshi, Anuj Udupa, Yogya Rajpurohit, Satwika Thakur, Shubham Mishra, Siddhant Kohli, Anirudh Bhatt, AoRs Arvind Kumar Sharma, Aaditya Aniruddha Pande

Cause Title: Shoma Kanti Sen vs The State of Maharashtra

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