On Thursday, 16 April, the Jharkhand High Court granted bail to former MP Som Marandi and five others. But, one of the conditions for the bail was that they needed to download the central government's Aarogya Setu contact tracing app.
Marandi and the five other men had filed a criminal revision petition in the high court, challenging a lower court decision to confirm their conviction and sentence for a 2012 protest on the railway tracks in Pakur district, Jharkhand. During the pendency of the case, they had applied for a suspension of their sentence, and for bail.
Justice Anubha Rawat Choudhary agreed that there were reasons to admit and hear the petition, which the petitioners noted could only be heard after the COVID-19 lockdown could end.
Meanwhile, the petitioners' lawyers had said they were willing to accept any conditions for bail imposed by the judge, and volunteered to contribute Rs 35,000 each to the PM CARES relief fund set up by the central government to tackle the novel coronavirus crisis.
Justice Choudhary agreed to this suggestion by the petitioners, and directed them to provide proof of this payment before their release – which, along with the requirement to provide mobile numbers/Aadhaar details, was not controversial.
However, she also added another condition for them to get bail: "Download the ‘Aarogya Setu app’ immediately after being released from custody and shall abide by the directions of the central government as well as state government issued in connection with containment of COVID-19 pandemic."
The Aarogya Setu app is an initiative of the central government to enable 'contact tracing' of people who could have been infected with the novel coronavirus.
While there have been pushes by several ministers and public figures – including PM Narendra Modi – encouraging people to download the app, neither the Centre nor the Jharkhand government have made it mandatory to download and install the app.
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