Passport retention as bail condition struck down where repeated surrender amounted to indirect impounding under the Passports Act.

A bail condition requiring repeated surrender of a passport after foreign travel was treated as indirect impounding and held unsustainable because the Passports Act, 1967 provides the governing mechanism for impounding or retention of passports. The Court considered that the passport was not incriminating, the applicant had complied with earlier travel permissions, had not misused liberty, and needed short-notice overseas travel for business. The flight-risk objection was rejected. The restrictive condition was deleted, the passport ordered to be returned, and the applicant was required only to furnish advance travel details for future foreign trips.

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Issues: Whether the bail condition requiring the applicant to surrender his passport every time he returned from abroad and seek permission for each future travel amounted to impermissible indirect impounding of the passport and deserved deletion.

Analysis: The passport was held to be not an incriminating document in the prosecution case. Permanent or repeated retention of the passport through a bail condition was found to be contrary to the scheme of the Passports Act, 1967, particularly the provisions governing impounding and retention of passports. The Passports Act was treated as a special law overriding the general procedure under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. The applicant's need to travel abroad on short notice for business, his compliance with earlier travel permissions, and the absence of misuse of liberty were also taken into account. The contention that he was a flight risk was not accepted.

Conclusion: The impugned passport-related bail condition was held to be unsustainable and was deleted; the applicant was entitled to return of his passport, subject to furnishing travel details in advance for future foreign travel.

Final Conclusion: The application succeeded, the restrictive passport condition was set aside, and the applicant's right to travel abroad was restored with a disclosure obligation for future trips.

Ratio Decidendi: A bail condition that requires repeated surrender and release of a passport, thereby operating as indirect impounding, cannot be sustained where the Passports Act provides the exclusive mechanism for impounding or retention and the applicant has not misused the liberty granted.

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