Impounding an NRI Husband's Passport to Enforce Maintenance

Passport impounding to enforce maintenance against an NRI husband does not work the way most people assume. No court in India can impound a passport. Only the passport authority can, under Section 10(3) of the Passports Act, 1967, and it must give the holder a hearing before it does. What a court can do is create the trigger: an order prohibiting the husband from leaving India, or a warrant or summons, which is exactly the situation Section 10(3)(h) of that Act is written for. The wife then takes that order to the passport authority and asks it to act.

Getting that sequence wrong is the commonest reason these applications fail. A prayer to a Family Court to "impound the passport of the respondent" is likely to be dismissed as beyond its powers, and those are months in which arrears keep building.

Who can actually impound a passport

The controlling authority is Suresh Nanda v. Central Bureau of Investigation, decided by the Supreme Court on 24 January 2008. The Court drew a line between seizure, which happens at a moment in time, and impounding, which is retaining the document afterwards. It held that while the police may seize a passport under Section 102(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, now Section 106 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, they have no power to impound it. It went further and held that a court cannot impound a passport under Section 104 of the CrPC either, now Section 109 of the BNSS, because the Passports Act is a special law that prevails over the general power to impound documents.

The Act gives the power only to the passport authority. Section 10(3) lets it impound or revoke on the grounds in clauses (a) to (h), Section 10(5) requires a brief written statement of reasons furnished on demand, and Section 11 gives a right of appeal to the prescribed appellate authority, except against an order of the Central Government itself.

Layered over that is Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, AIR 1978 SC 597, (1978) 1 SCC 248, decided on 25 January 1978. The right to travel abroad is part of personal liberty under Article 21, the procedure for taking it away must be fair, just and reasonable, and an impounding order must ordinarily follow an opportunity to show cause. That is why the husband will get notice.

Key takeaway. Do not ask a court to impound. Ask the court for an order restraining departure from India, or for a warrant, and then ask the passport authority to impound on the strength of it. That is the only sequence the Passports Act actually supports.

The power to take a passport away is split three ways, and only one of them ends in impounding.

The grounds that actually apply in a matrimonial case

Three clauses of Section 10(3) matter, and they are not interchangeable.

Clause (h) is the workhorse. It applies where a warrant or summons for appearance, or a warrant for arrest, has been issued by a court, or where a court has ordered that the holder not leave India, and the passport authority is satisfied that this has happened. A breached maintenance order followed by a warrant under Section 144(3) of the BNSS, formerly Section 125(3) of the CrPC, fits squarely inside clause (h), as does an express restraint on leaving the country.

Clause (e) applies where proceedings in respect of an offence alleged against the holder are pending before a criminal court in India. Note the wording. A maintenance petition is not a prosecution for an offence, so a standalone maintenance case does not attract clause (e). Where a case under Section 85 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the successor to Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, is pending, clause (e) becomes available.

Clause (c) is the widest and least predictable, covering impounding "in the interests of the general public" among other grounds. It matters for a second reason: Section 10A, which lets the Central Government or a designated officer suspend a passport with immediate effect, is available only where the passport is likely to be impounded or revoked under clause (c). That suspension runs for up to four weeks, extendable by a reasoned order until the Section 10 proceedings conclude, with a hearing within eight weeks.

The realistic routes, compared

Passport impounding for maintenance against an NRI husband, step by step

1. Obtain an enforceable order first. Interim maintenance under Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, maintenance under Section 144 of the BNSS, or monetary relief under Section 20 of the Domestic Violence Act, 2005 all qualify.
2. Prove default on record. File the enforcement application setting out each unpaid instalment with dates and amounts, and seek a warrant under Section 144(3) of the BNSS or execution under Order 21 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.
3. Apply in the same proceeding for an order restraining the husband from leaving India, supported by material showing a real risk of departure, such as a foreign employer, a visa, or a booked ticket.
4. Take certified copies of the order, the warrant and proof of service, and file a written representation with the Regional Passport Office holding his file and with the Consular, Passport and Visa Division of the Ministry of External Affairs.
5. Set out the ground you rely on, clause (h) for a warrant or a departure restraint, clause (e) if a criminal case is pending. Do not simply attach papers and hope the authority identifies the clause for you.
6. Expect a show cause notice to the husband. That is natural justice under the Act as read in Maneka Gandhi, not obstruction.
7. Where the office does not act in reasonable time, a writ petition under Article 226 asking that the representation be decided is the usual remedy. In S. Valliammai (alias Pavithra) v. The Secretary, 18 November 2025, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court declined to impound the passport itself and directed the authorities to decide the wife's representation on merits within two months after hearing both sides.
8. Keep the money recovery running in parallel. Impounding is pressure. It is not payment.

Deadline warning. The proviso to Section 144(3) of the BNSS says no warrant shall be issued to recover an amount due under that section unless the application to levy it is made within one year from the date it became due. Wives who wait three years and then apply for the whole arrears frequently find most of it time barred for warrant recovery. Apply every year, or better, every few months.

Make the maintenance order enforceable first

Everything above assumes an order that can be enforced. Three points decide that.

First, quantification. In Rajnesh v. Neha, decided by the Supreme Court on 4 November 2020, the Court directed that affidavits of disclosure of assets and liabilities be filed by both parties in every maintenance proceeding. For an NRI respondent that affidavit is the most useful document you will get, because it puts his foreign salary, employer and holdings on oath.

Second, the right machinery. A maintenance order under Section 144 of the BNSS is enforced under Section 147, which allows any Magistrate to enforce it wherever the husband may be found. Orders under the Hindu Marriage Act are enforced under Section 28A of that Act like civil decrees, which means Order 21 of the CPC. Under the Domestic Violence Act, Section 20(6) is underused: where the respondent fails to pay, the Magistrate may direct his employer or a debtor to pay a portion of his wages or the debt directly to the wife or into court. If he draws money from an Indian source, that provision reaches it without touching his passport.

Third, service. An order passed without proper service will not survive a challenge, and will not persuade a passport authority either. Service abroad through the Indian Mission or by the mode the court permits should be documented from the start.

Common mistake. Filing the passport representation before the arrears are crystallised by a court order and a warrant. The Regional Passport Office is being asked to take away a fundamental right on the strength of paperwork, and it will not do that on an affidavit that says he "has not been paying regularly". Give it a figure, a date and a court order.

Three different statutes carry a maintenance order into execution, and each supplies its own machinery.

Look Out Circulars, and what they do not do

An LOC is an immigration control, not a recovery tool. It is issued through the Bureau of Immigration under the Ministry of Home Affairs Office Memorandum framework, most recently consolidated by the memorandum of 22 February 2021, which the Karnataka High Court examined in Sudarshan Ramesh v. Union of India, decided on 20 June 2022. Clause 6(L) of that memorandum, reproduced in the judgment, allows an LOC even in cases outside the ordinary guidelines where departure ought not to be permitted in the larger public interest.

Its value in an NRI matrimonial case is that it works while the husband is physically in India, typically during a visit. Its limit is that it does nothing once he has left, and pays no arrears. Treat it as a way of securing his presence, not as the remedy.

When he simply stays abroad

If he never returns, passport pressure becomes indirect, though an impounded or revoked passport still complicates his status abroad because renewal runs through the same Indian authority. The realistic levers are Indian assets and Indian income: attachment in execution under Order 21 of the CPC, the direction to an employer or debtor under Section 20(6) of the Domestic Violence Act, and, where a criminal case is on foot, proclamation under Section 84 and attachment under Section 85 of the BNSS. Chapter VIII of the BNSS, which carries the reciprocal arrangements with contracting States, is confined to criminal proceedings and is not a debt collection route.

Indicative costs and timelines

These are indicative, vary widely by court and complexity, and are not a promise of any outcome or timeframe. Court fees on enforcement applications in family and magistrate courts are generally nominal, often a few hundred rupees, while a writ petition in the High Court carries higher fees and professional charges. An application for a warrant or a departure restraint may take a few weeks to a few months depending on service on a respondent abroad. A representation to a Regional Passport Office commonly takes some months and involves a show cause notice. If a writ petition becomes necessary, add several more months.

A note from practice

The cases that move are the boring, well documented ones. A bank statement showing the exact months of non payment, a certified copy of the order, proof of service, and a one page representation naming the clause of Section 10(3) relied on will do more than a long affidavit about the husband's conduct. It also helps to be realistic. Impounding a passport rarely produces a cheque on its own. What it produces is a husband with a reason to negotiate, which is usually where these matters end. Related reading covers enforcing unpaid maintenance, maintenance under Section 125 and NRI divorce in India, and the family and divorce law page sets out the areas we write on.

Related guides and where to get help

If this is a live problem rather than background reading, our family and divorce law practice handles these matters from Bengaluru, including for clients who cannot attend court in person. These guides go deeper on the neighbouring questions:

• Can a Husband Claim Maintenance From His Wife in India?
• How to Recover Unpaid Maintenance When Your Husband Refuses to Pay
• Can a Working Wife Claim Maintenance in India?

Frequently Asked Questions

This is general information on Indian law and not legal advice. Enforcement against a respondent living abroad depends entirely on the facts, the documents and the jurisdiction involved, and no outcome or timeline can be promised.