Bail conditions must be proportionate and feasible: surveillance-style PIN tracking and impossible embassy certification were rejected.

Bail conditions must remain proportionate, legally permissible and capable of compliance, and cannot authorise real-time surveillance or impose arbitrary, fanciful or impossible requirements. A condition requiring an accused to drop a Google Maps PIN was held invalid because it amounted to intrusive monitoring and was beyond the proper scope of bail conditions under criminal procedure and Article 21 protections. A separate requirement that a foreign accused produce an Embassy or High Commission certificate was also found unsustainable where it depended on third-party action outside the accused's control; the court noted that alternative safeguards such as passport surrender or periodic reporting could be imposed instead.

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Issues: (i) Whether a bail condition requiring an accused to drop a PIN on Google Maps, enabling monitoring of movement, was lawful; (ii) whether the condition requiring a certificate of assurance from the foreign accused's Embassy or High Commission could be sustained and whether reconsideration of the earlier direction was necessary.

Issue (i): Whether a bail condition requiring an accused to drop a PIN on Google Maps, enabling monitoring of movement, was lawful.

Analysis: Bail conditions must remain within the scope of Section 437(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, and any additional condition must serve the interests of justice without becoming arbitrary, fanciful, freakish, or impossible to comply with. The constitutional protection under Article 21 of the Constitution of India applies even to an accused enlarged on bail, and the condition cannot justify constant surveillance of movements or intrusion into privacy. The material placed on record showed that a Google Maps PIN marks only a static location chosen by the user and does not enable real-time tracking of the user or device. A condition that is redundant, unnecessary, and capable of being understood as authorising surveillance cannot stand as a valid bail condition.

Conclusion: The condition requiring dropping of a PIN on Google Maps was illegal and was directed to be deleted, in favour of the appellant.

Issue (ii): Whether the condition requiring a certificate of assurance from the foreign accused's Embassy or High Commission could be sustained and whether reconsideration of the earlier direction was necessary.

Analysis: The earlier directions in the precedent relied upon were intended as one-time measures for delayed trials and were not meant to curtail the statutory power to grant bail under Section 37 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985. Such a certificate is beyond the control of the accused, and bail cannot be defeated by an impossible condition. If the Embassy or High Commission does not issue the certificate within a reasonable time, the court may dispense with the requirement and impose other appropriate conditions such as surrender of passport or periodic reporting. The Court also found that the matter did not call for reference to a larger Bench on the foreign-national condition.

Conclusion: The certificate condition was not mandatory in every case, the reference to a larger Bench was declined, and the condition was ordered to be deleted, in favour of the appellant.

Final Conclusion: The impugned bail order was modified by removing the two challenged conditions, while the matter was kept pending for further orders on compliance.

Ratio Decidendi: Bail conditions must be proportionate, legally permissible, and capable of compliance, and they cannot authorise real-time surveillance or impose an impossible requirement that effectively nullifies the grant of bail.

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