Police nor criminal court can seize passport, says Karnataka HC
Bengaluru: The High Court of Karnataka has reiterated that ”neither the police nor the criminal court invoking powers under Sections 102 or 104 of the Criminal Procedure Code can seize or impound a passport.” The court, therefore, recently quashed the order of the Debt Recovery Tribunal-1, Bengaluru, which had impounded the passport of Nitin Shambhukumar Kasliwal, a businessman from Mumbai.
The court said the Tribunal has the powers of a civil court and when the civil court itself cannot impound a passport, the DRT too cannot.
The facts of the case date back to 1999 when Kasliwal had executed an agreement in favour of various lenders for loans secured. In 2015, the lender banks initiated a case before the Debt Recovery Tribunal seeking repayment and in default attachment and sale of properties of Kasliwal and his businesses.
The banks applied for the surrender of Kasliwal’s passport. On April 16, 2015, the Tribunal passed an order retaining his passport.
Subsequently, Kasliwal filed applications whenever he needed to travel abroad and in return surrendered the passport to the Tribunal.
In December 2016 he sought the release of his passport as he had to renew it before its validity expired, but his application was rejected. He then approached the High Court.
Kasliwal’s petition was heard by Justice M Nagaprasanna, who gave his judgment on December 6, 2023.
The court noted that the Tribunal had the same powers vested in a civil court.
”The issue is, whether the Tribunal can direct withholding of passport of any person in terms of the power ascribed under the provisions quoted hereinabove. The answer would be an unequivocal and emphatic ‘NO’,” the court said in its judgment.
Reasoning that the Tribunal does not have the power to impound passports, the court said, ”The Passport Act is a special enactment and is trite that it being a special enactment which would prevail over any power of even the civil court or criminal court to retain or impound a passport.
”The issue in the case at hand is, such an act being done by the Tribunal which undoubtedly has only the power of following the procedure of a civil court in securing ends of justice. The civil court or the criminal court itself does not have the power to impound the passport.” The court said that though Sections 102 and 104 empower the police to seize and the court to impound any document, it does not include the passport.
”Impounding of any document produced before the court cannot stretch to an extent that those courts can impound the passport also,” it said.
Ordering the Tribunal to release the passport of Kasliwal, the court said, ”The very act of the Tribunal in directing surrender of the passport of a citizen or its detention before it, would amount to impounding of the passport. Such power is unavailable to the Tribunal.”
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Karnataka sets up India's first Cyber Command Centre to tackle surge in cybercrimes
Bengaluru: In a significant step toward strengthening cybersecurity, Karnataka has established the country’s first Cyber Command Centre. This pioneering initiative aims to address the alarming rise in cybercrime cases across the state.
The newly-formed Cyber Command Centre will focus on a broad range of digital threats, including cyber fraud, hacking, identity theft, online stalking, sextortion, deepfake-related crimes, misinformation, data breaches, among others. It comes as Karnataka, particularly its capital Bengaluru, continues to grapple with a spike in cybercrime incidents—reportedly accounting for nearly 20% of all such cases recorded in India’s megacities. Over the past four years, the state has registered more than 52,000 cybercrime cases, the highest in South India.
The Cyber Command will operate under the leadership of an IPS officer of the rank of Director General of Police.
As part of the restructuring, 43 CEN (Cyber, Economic and Narcotics) police stations across the state will now function as designated cybercrime units.
Headquartered at the CID building on Palace Road, the Cyber Command Centre will serve as a hub for coordinating the state’s cybercrime prevention and investigation efforts. DGP (Cyber Command) will report to the Additional Chief Secretary, Home Department and not the Director General and Inspector General of Police (DG&IGP), Karnataka State Police.
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