Criminal courts can’t order surrender of passport: HC
COURT’S ORDER COMES ON AIR INDIA PILOT’S PLEA, WHO WAS BOOKED IN CHEATING AND MISAPPROPRIATION CASE LAST YEAR
CHANDIGARH: Criminal courts cannot order the impounding of passports as a condition for granting bail, the Punjab and Haryana high court held on Thursday.
A bench of justice Daya Chaudhary said the authority to impound passports lies solely with the passport authority under Section 10 (3) of the Passports Act, 1967.
The bench was hearing a petition of Anila Bhatia, a senior pilot with Air Indian and a Gurugram resident, who was booked by the local police in a cheating and misappropriation case in August 2017.
A trial court granted her bail this September, with a condition that she would surrender her passport and would not leave the country without informing the court.
The petitioner had told the court that she did not know in advance as to which country she would have to fly and on which flight. It was difficult for the petitioner to approach the trial court each and every day to seek prior permission in a short span of time as she was given a break of only two-three days before flying abroad, she had pleaded.
“No doubt, Section 104 of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) states that the court may, if it thinks fit, impound any document or thing produced before it but this provision will only enable the court to impound any document or thing other than a passport as impounding a ‘passport’ is provided for in Section 10(3) of the Passports Act,” justice Chaudhary said, adding that a special law prevails over the general law.
The Passports Act is a special law while the CrPC is a general law. Hence, the impounding of a passport cannot be done by the court.
The court further said police have power to seize a passport under Section 102 of CrPC but it does not have the power to retain or impound the same, because that can only be done by the passport authority under Section 10(3) of the Passports Act. Hence, after the seizure it should be sent to the passport authority, which can take a call on impounding the passport.