Look Out Circulars that restrain travel abroad directly burden...

Look Out Circulars that restrain travel abroad directly burden the Article 21 right to personal liberty and can survive only if supported by a live legal basis, proportionality, and independent application of mind. Bank-initiated LOCs were found unsustainable because public sector banks lacked present authority to seek them through their officers, and ordinary loan default, NPA status or recovery proceedings could not justify travel restraint absent a legally sustainable criminal basis; those LOCs were quashed subject to travel-intimation and case-specific safeguards. Continuation of LOCs could not rest mechanically on pending assessment, search or complaint alone; where the restraint had served its purpose or lacked present necessity, it was set aside. In pending charge-sheet or complaint cases, petitioners were relegated to the criminal court seized of the record for modification or rescission.

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