The Delhi High Court on Tuesday heard the plea detailing the harassment and inconvenience caused to the petitioner/ Captain Jagwinder Singh Brar at the hands of Immigration officers who said there has been a Lookout Notice against him. However these officers never disclosed the details of the alleged circular. That the unreasonable humiliation faced by the petitioner, violates his fundamental rights under Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution.
The bench of Justice Rekha Palli directed the respondent to provide details of the Lookout Notice if any to Captain Jagwinder Singh Brar (the petitioner).
Advocate-on-Record Dheeraj Gupta, appearing on behalf of the petitioner, submitted the petitioner has questioned at immigration points at airports in India for hours without giving him any reasons or details of the LOC. Moreover, the petitioner has been tormented in this manner for almost a decade now. This has not only led to grave humiliation and embarrassment for the petitioner but is also mental torture for his family members/ friends / business associates travelling with him.
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It is stated in the petition that sometime in 2012 a complaint was registered against the petitioner along with the other accused in Mumbai under Sections 336 and 34 of the IPC alleging that they had left the ship unattended which caused danger to the life of the people and property on the ship. Thereafter, the petitioner was acquitted in 2018. The questioning that happened during the pendency of the case was treated as normal procedure by the petitioner.
The petition further states that in 2020, even after the acquittal of the petitioner when he was travelling to India, the immigration officers at the Mumbai Airport informed him about the look-out circular issued against him by the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) in the year 2011. The petitioner had also filed an RTI application but Intelligence Bureau (Ministry of Home Affairs) responded by stating that they were exempted from sharing the information under Section 24(1) and Second Schedule of the RTI Act. Since then the petitioner is running from pillar to post trying to dig for the information without any success.
The grievance of the petitioner is that he has not received any notice/summons in any case. Therefore, the question of the alleged look-out circular pending against the petitioner does not arise. He sought directions to the Government of India to share details of any LOC with the petitioner so as to enable him to seek appropriate remedy. The matter will now be heard on January 14, 2022.