Bhima Koregaon: NIA in a quandary as bail condition for mobile phone tethering turns out to be a tug

The bail conditions set by the Supreme Court during the grant of regular bail to Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira mandated pairing mobile phones of the duo with the devices of the investigating officers. Now the National Investigation Agency has said that the concerned investigating officers stand to lose their privacy.

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"IF you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you," wrote German philosopher Freidrich Neitszche in his book Beyond Good And Evil.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) seems to have discovered the meaning of the quote recently.

On July 28, a division Bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Justices Aniruddha Bose and Sudhanshu Dhulia, granted regular bail to Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira.

Gonsalves is a trade unionist, activist and academic, while Ferreira is an activist and a lawyer. The two are accused in the Bhima Koregaon–Elgar Parishad case and charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA).

They had been incarcerated for almost five years without a trial. 

Among the conditions of the bail, the duo were required not to change their mobile phones, keep their phones charged at all times, keep the location status of the phones 'active' all through the day, and pair the devices with the devices of the investigating office of the NIA.

These harsh bail conditions did nothing to protect the right of the duo to a minimal level of privacy, as the bail conditions intend to keep the duo tethered to the authorities at all times.

The bail conditions were perhaps also an indirect recognition of the commonplace notion that mobile phones are used as surveillance tools by authorities.