5 months ago
92
The Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) has no power in law for directing the detention or surrendering of passport during pendency of loan recovery proceedings before it, as such directions would amount to impounding of the passport, said the High Court of Karnataka.
Pointing out that even civil and criminal courts have no power in law to impound the passport, the High Court said that the power for impounding is available only to the passport authorities under Section 10 of the Passports Act, 1967, and for the constitutional courts.
On request of banks
The DRTs were passing orders for surrender of passport on the requests of banks to prevent borrowers/guarantors from leaving the country without prior permission from tribunals during pendency of proceedings.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order while directing DRT-1, Bengaluru, to hand over the passport of the petitioner, Nitin Shambhukumar Kasliwal of Mumbai.
The DRT kept the petitioner’s passport in its custody since 2015 and was releasing it for his travel based on his submission of the itinerary.
The petitioner, who was a guarantor to certain loans, was a respondent before the DRT in recovery proceedings initiated by the banks on some companies.
The petitioner had knocked the doors of the High Court as the DRT had recently rejecting his plea for releasing the passport for the purpose of renewal as its validity had expired.
Section 102 or 104 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Cr.P.C) empowers the police to seize and the trial court to impound any document but they have no power to impound passports, the High Court said, while pointing out that the Supreme Court had already ruled that the investigating agencies and the trial courts have no power to impound passports.
No justification
Retaining of the passport by the DRT can hardly be justified under the Recovery of Debts Due to Banks and Financial Institutions Act, 1993, under which it functions, much less under Section Section 22(2)(h) [Procedure and Powers of the Tribunal] and Section 19(25) [Application to the Tribunal] of the Act invoked by the banks for seeking surrender of petitioner’s passport, the High Court said.
“The DRT, which undoubtedly has only the power of following the procedure of a civil court in securing ends of justice, certainly has no power to impound passport,” said the High Court.
