There is often confusion regarding who has authority to seize and impound passport. We must first understand the difference between seizing of a document and impounding a document. The Supreme Court described that “seizure is made at a particular moment when a person or authority takes into his possession some property which was earlier not in his possession. Thus, seizure is done at a particular moment of time. However, if after seizing of a property or document the said property or document is retained for some period of time, then such retention amounts to impounding of the property/or document.
In Suresh Nanda vs CBI, The Supreme Court observed that they should not enable courts to impound the passport.
There are several judgements by various High Courts which state that “only authority under Passport Act can impound passport, and courts can’t do so under CrPC”. No change has happened in BNSS in this regard.
Section 104 CRPC , now section 109 of BNSS gives police authority to retain document . As per Sec 109 BNSS, Any Court may, if it thinks fit, impound any document or thing produced before it under this Sanhita.
Therefore, under The Passport Act, it is the passport authority that has ultimate authority to revoke or impound passport.
As per Section 10 (a) of Passports Act, central government can retain passport only for 4 weeks. Beyond that it needs an order from passport authority to retain the passport.
As per Section 10(3) of Passports Act, passport and such documents can be impounded by passport authority. However, it should also be noted that Article 19 and Article 21 give liberty and freedom which are infringed and violated when an unnecessary order to retain a passport is issued by the court.
Ultimately, it is the passport authority and passport act which has the power.
Also, anytime there is a general act and a special act, it is the special act which supercedes. Therefore, Passport Act supersedes.
In the Law Lexicon by P. Ramanatha Aiyar (2nd Edition), the word impound has been defined to mean to take possession of a document or thing for being held in custody in accordance with law. Thus, the word impounding really means retention of possession of a good or a document which has been seized”
According to the Supreme Court, if the police seizes a passport (which it has power to do under Section 102 Cr.P.C.), thereafter, 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.
So, police may have the power to seize a passport under Section 102(1) Cr.P.C (109 BNSS) 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.
