PETER SAMOUEL WALLACE Vs. REGIONAL PASPORT OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In Satwant Singh Sawhney V. D. Ramarathnam, (1967) 3 SCR 525,(i) the majority of the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court held that right to travel abroad was a part of "personal liberty" and as such a fundamental right guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution. It could, therefore, be regulated only "according to procedure established by law" thereunder and not by mere executive discretion and further the exercise of executive discretion was also violative of Article 14 of the Constitution. Parliament thereupon enacted the Passports Act, 1967 (No. 15 of 1967) (hereinafter called the Act) to establish the procedure under which passports may be granted or refused to applicants by the Central Government. Under section 6(2)(f) of the Act, the passport authority shall refuse to issue a passport on the ground "that proceedings in respect of an offence alleged to have been committed by the applicant are pending before a criminal court in India".

(2.) The application of the appellant Peter Samouel Wallace for a passport was rejected on this ground under section 6(2)(f) of the Act by the Regional passport Officer, Delhi, inasmuch as several criminal eases were pending against him in the law courts. This order was challenged by Wallace in a writ petition which was heard by D. K. Kapur J. The learned Judge dismissed the writ petition by pointing out that seven criminal cases were pending against Wallace. Out of them three were said to have resulted in the acquittal of Wallace. But the affidavit of Wallace regarding the remaining four cases was vague. It merely stated that he had been acquitted. It did not state when he was acquitted. On the contrary, a further affidavit filed for the Government stated that there were three other cases pending for trial against Wallace. It was further stated that Wallace had made a fresh application for the grant of passport and hence the previous application for passport against the rejection of which the writ petition has been ffled had become infructuous. The learned Judge was further of the view that the Passports Act, 1967 could not be said to be ultra vires Article 21 of the Constitution and the restriction imposed by section 6(2)(f) thereof on the grant of passport could not be said to be unreasonable.

(3.) In this appeal against the dismissal of the writ petition, Shri R.L. Kohli, learned counsel for the appellant, has urged one main point. He says that the fundamental right to travel abroad could be regulated only by "procedure established by law". He relies on the summary of the observations of Patanjali Sastri J. in A. K. Gopaian v. State of Madras, (1950) SCR 88,(2) as given in the head-note at pages 90-91 saying that the meaning of "procedure established by law" is not "any procedure which may be prescribed by a competent legislature, but the ordinary well-established criminal procedure, i.e.. those settled usages and normal modes of procedure sanctioned by the Criminal Procedure Code, which is the general law of criminal procedure in this country". He contends, therefore, that the Passports Act, 1967 is merely a new procedure prescribed by the Legislature. It could not be said to be the "procedure established by law" and it cannot, therefore, deprive the appellant of his fundamental right to travel abroad guaranteed by Article 21.