New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday (July 8) said in a judgment that it is not permissible for courts to order an accused to share his Google PIN location with the authorities as a condition for the grant of bail.“Two things we have said. There cannot be bail condition defeating purpose of bail. We have said Google PIN cannot be a condition; police cannot peep into accused’s private life for bail. And even regarding the NOC, we have said it cannot be so stringent,” said a bench of Justices Abhay S. Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan said in their verdict, reported Bar and Bench.Earlier, during the hearing, the court had directed Google India to explain how the pin sharing feature works on Google maps.While reserving its verdict on April 29, the court had remarked that such a condition is hit by the right to privacy that is guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution, reported Bar and Bench.“Courts can curtail the freedom of the accused only to the extent required for imposing the bail conditions warranted by law. Bail conditions cannot be so onerous as to frustrate the order of bail itself … The investigating agency cannot be permitted to continuously peep into the private life of the accused enlarged on bail, by imposing arbitrary conditions since that will violate the right of privacy of the accused, as guaranteed by … Article 21,” said the court in its judgement on Monday (July 8).The court also declared the Google pin sharing as a feature for bail as redundant owing to the fact that it is not a real-time tracking either.“The (locating sharing) condition deserves to be deleted.. In some cases, this Court may have imposed a similar condition. But in those cases, this Court was not called upon to decide the issue of the effect and legality of such a condition”, the court added, reported Bar and Bench.The Supreme Court’s verdict came in an appeal against some conditions imposed by the Delhi High Court in its order granting interim bail to a Nigerian national, Frank Vitus, an accused in a drugs case.The bail conditions had included dropping a pin on the Google map to keep the investigating officer updated about the whereabouts of the accused.