Gurugram: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has overturned a trial court’s order denying the renewal of a passport surrendered as a bail condition, holding that surrendering the document in compliance with a judicial direction cannot, by itself, permanently bar its renewal.
In an oral order passed on 17 September, Justice Virinder Aggarwal observed that the right to possess a passport and travel abroad forms part of the personal liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution, subject to reasonable restrictions imposed by law and orders of a competent court.
The order addresses a gap that often emerges after bail is granted—courts ask accused persons to surrender their passports to prevent them from leaving the country, leaving no room to renew the document which comes with a fixed validity date.
The court was hearing a petition by Jagtar Singh, whose passport expired after he surrendered it as part of his bail conditions in 2023. Singh was named in an FIR lodged at Punjab’s Barnala City police station on 24 February 2022, under IPC Sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant, banker, merchant or agent), 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence or giving false information to screen an offender) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy).
The high court granted him bail on 1 February 2023, following which he surrendered his passport in compliance with the order.
Singh first approached the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Barnala, seeking the return of his passport solely to renew it. The magistrate rejected his application on 6 November last year, holding that the passport had been surrendered under the bail conditions.
He then moved the high court seeking to quash the magistrate’s order.
Singh’s lawyer, P.S. Dhaliwal, told the court that his client had been named in the FIR mainly on the basis of a co-accused’s disclosure statement and that there was no substantive material directly linking him to the alleged irregularities in the society’s affairs.
Dhaliwal said Singh was not seeking any change in his bail conditions, but only limited permission to renew his passport so he could visit his family in Australia. The magistrate had rejected the application solely because the passport had been surrendered under the bail order, he said.
The state opposed the plea. Additional Advocate General Hemant Aggarwal argued that Singh had voluntarily surrendered the passport under conditions imposed by the high court itself and had shown no compelling or exceptional circumstance to justify relaxing them. The magistrate’s order was well-reasoned and free from any illegality, the state said.
Justice Aggarwal, however, directed the trial court to return the expired passport to Singh for the limited purpose of producing it before the Regional Passport Office and applying for its renewal.
The judge held that surrendering a passport in compliance with a judicial direction cannot, by itself, permanently bar its renewal, particularly when the petitioner was not seeking to evade the proceedings or dilute his bail conditions.
The judge clarified that he was expressing no opinion on the merits of the criminal case.
Once the new passport is issued, Singh must “forthwith” deposit it with the trial court, ordered the judge. The renewed passport will thereafter remain subject to the same orders and conditions governing Singh while the case against him is pending.
The order did not deal with the question of Singh travelling abroad as his application to the high court was confined to the renewal of his passport.
(Edited by Chingkheinganbi Mayengbam)
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