The Delhi High Court has allowed anticipatory bail to a man who was detained in immigration at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi when he was coming back from London for allegedly travelling overseas on someone else’s passport by impersonating him.
A single bench of Justice Vibhu Bakhru called the issue a controversial one and allowed the anticipatory bail application on conditions that the petitioner shall continue to cooperate with the investigation officer and appear before him whenever required.
The court agreed to the contentions of the petitioner that he had lost his passport during his visit to London and that he applied for an Emergency Certificate to travel back to Delhi which has been verified by the Indian High Commission at United Kingdom.
The prosecution contends that there was no record of the petitioner leaving the country for travelling overseas and thus implying that he is impersonating some anonymous person.
The counsel for the petitioner claimed that there is no allegation of any forgery with regards to the emergency travel documents and since they are already verified, the aforesaid was pleaded.
The emergency certificate and new passport is issued by the Indian Consulate at UK which takes a minimum of 1 week to get the passport if lost. Copy of lost passport, stolen police report, a police clearance certificate which takes 6-8 days itself, half-a-dozen passport size pictures, copy of visa and air tickets and reasons thereof to travel are some of the documents required. Although it takes less time to get an emergency certificate to travel by submitting an EAP-2 form which is valid for one time travel only. With both the options, one needs to get the visa stamped again.
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