Saturday, May 2, 2009

Police cannot impound passports: Centre - Pune - Cities - The Times of India

Police cannot impound passports: Centre - Pune - Cities - The Times of India
  • The SC has held, "The police may have the power to seize a passport under section 102 (1) of CrPC, but it does not have the power to impound the same. Impounding of a passport can only be done by the passport authority under section 10 (3) of the Passports Act, 1967."
  • A division bench of justice P P Naolekar and justice Markandey Katju has observed, "If the police seizes a passport, the police must send it along with a letter to the passport authority, clearly stating that the seized passport deserves to be impounded for one of the reasons mentioned in section 10 (3) of the Passport Act. The passport authority should decide whether to impound the passport or not. Since impounding of a passport has civil consequences, the passport authority must give an opportunity of hearing to the person concerned before impounding the passport."
  • A seizure is done at a particular moment of time. However, if after seizing of a property or document it is retained for some period of time, then such retention amounts to impounding of the property or document.
  • "Several persons have approached the Bombay high court asking that their passports be returned. The HC has also held that the police had no authority to impound or seize the passport," Karlekar stated.

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