Passport Can't Be Seized Or Retained By Investigating Agency In Absence Of Any Crime Committed With It: Kerala High Court

A passport cannot be seized or retained by the investigating agencies in the absence of any crime committed or suspected to have been committed with the said document, the Kerala High Court has held.

A single bench of Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas thus allowed the petition moved by an accused booked under the NDPS Act, seeking release of his passport, his mobile phone and Bahraini identity card which was seized by the Intelligence Officer of NCB. It observed,

"The passport of an individual is an important document and is issued under the provisions of the Passports Act, 1967. In the absence of any crime committed or suspected to have been committed with the said document, a passport cannot be seized or retained by the investigating agencies. The seizure of a document, if it can be treated as a property, has to be under section 102 of the Cr.P.C and the conditions stipulated therein ought to be satisfied. A document is generally subjected to impounding under section 104 Cr.P.C and this can only be done by the Court."

The bench further clarified that a passport cannot be impounded even by the Court despite Section 104 of CrPC, as the said provision will enable the court to impound any document or thing, other than a passport. Power to impound the passport is only with the Passport Authority under section 10(3) of the Passports Act, 1967, it held.

So far as the instant case is concerned, the investigating agency argued that accused was released on bail but one of the conditions in the bail order is that he shall not leave the State of Kerala without the permission of the trial court. Thus, it was argued that the release of his passport will not serve any purpose. It was further argued that if the identity card and other materials are returned, he may misuse the same.

Dismissing these contentions, the Court held,

"there is no condition in the order granting bail to the petitioner directing him to deposit the passport. The restriction that petitioner shall not travel outside Kerala without permission from the Coiurt cannot be a reason to retain his passport. The contention of the learned counsel for the second respondent that if the passport is returned to the petitioner, he will leave the country and abscond, is, according to me, an untenable contention since the court has already imposed a condition that he shall not travel outside Kerala...The long retention of a passport without even a condition in the bail order will amount to impounding, which is opposed to law."

So far as his mobile and ID is concerned, the Court ordered them to be released stating, "If the mobile phone was required to be subjected to forensic analysis, the same should have been done by now. If forensic analysis has been done already, there is no purpose in retaining the mobile phone with the second respondent. Similarly, the identity card of the petitioner has no use in the investigation and therefore that document is also required to be returned to the petitioner immediately."