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CHANDIGARH: Punjab and Haryana high court has ruled that the authority vested in a criminal court to impose the condition of ‘deposit of passport’ ought not to be exercised in a “rote or automatic manner”, and such bail conditions must not unduly curtail personal liberty.HC was of the view that the condition for depositing one’s passport must be supported by specific material that points to a genuine flight risk. “It must be acknowledged that passport is not merely a travel document, but is often used as proof of nationality and identity. An order of deposit of passport as a pre-condition for bail is justifiable only on the basis of objective factors indicating a clear and imminent threat to the administration of justice, and must not be employed as a punitive measure against an undertrial accused, who is presumed innocent until proven guilty,” the bench of Justice Sumeet Goel held while deciding a criminal revision petition filed by Ram Lubhaya and others, who challenged a Nov 22, 2019, order of the additional sessions judge, Jalandhar.. HC was also of the view that it is not desirable to lay down any “straitjacket formulation” in this regard. To do so would be to crystallise into a rigid definition a judicial discretion, which even the legitimate has, for the best of all reasons, left undetermined. “Any attempt in this regard would be, to say the least, a quixotic endeavour. Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact, may make a sea of difference between conclusions in two cases. Such exercise would thus, indubitably, be dependent upon the factual matrix of the particular case which the court is seisin of, since every case has its own peculiar factual conspectus. Such judicial discretion, but of course, ought to be exercised in accordance with the principles of justice, equity, and good conscience,” the court held.While the Jalandhar sessions court had granted anticipatory bail to the petitioners in a criminal case, involving charges of causing hurt and wrongful confinement, it directed them to deposit their passports before the trial magistrate. In their plea before HC, the petitioners argued that they were summoned only for comparatively less severe offences and there was no material on record to show they were a flight risk. “The condition was arbitrary, excessive, and imposed without justification. Passports are essential identity and travel documents, and their seizure caused undue hardship,” the petitioners argued.After hearing the matter, HC set aside the condition requiring the petitioners to deposit their passports, holding it to be unsupported by facts.
