If your bail order says you shall not leave India without the court's permission, or your passport lies with the court or the investigating officer, you fly only after an order of the court that imposed that condition, obtained on an application that states the purpose, the dates, the itinerary and an undertaking to return. If the order is silent and no passport was deposited, nothing in the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 bars you from leaving, although the court trying the case can still direct your attendance. Two separate locks remain whatever the order says: the passport, governed by the Passports Act, 1967, and any Look Out Circular standing against you.
Part of the bail and anticipatory bail practice at S Jain & Attorneys, Bangalore.
This page is for an accused on regular or anticipatory bail in Karnataka, or with a case pending and no bail condition, who has to go abroad. The conditions a court may lawfully attach to bail are covered in our guides on anticipatory bail conditions and how far a court can go when granting bail.
What you must do turns on the words of your order.
| What the bail order says | What you need before you fly | Who decides | What goes in the application |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Shall not leave India without the previous permission of the Court" | An order permitting the journey | The court that imposed the condition, or the court now seized of the case | Purpose with documents, dates, itinerary, address abroad, undertaking, surety |
| Passport to be surrendered or deposited | Release of the passport for the trip and its redeposit on return | The same court | The above, plus a prayer for release and a date for redeposit |
| Nothing about travel, passport with you | A valid passport and no circular | The passport authority and any originating agency | Nothing |
| Passport expired, case pending | A renewal under the 1993 exemption on the court's order | The criminal court for the order, the passport office for the passport | An application for a no-objection order stating the validity sought |
Do I need the court's permission at all? Read the bail order before you book.
Only if a condition says so, or your passport is deposited. Section 482(2)(iii) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, which replaced section 438 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, lists as a condition the court may include "that the person shall not leave India without the previous permission of the Court". Section 480(3), which replaced section 437(3), makes three conditions compulsory on bail for the graver offences and lets the court add "in the interests of justice, such other conditions as it considers necessary", which is where a passport deposit usually comes from. Section 483(1)(a), the old section 439, gives the High Court and the Court of Session the same power.
Breach is not a technicality. Sections 480(5) and 483(3) let the court direct your arrest, and the Karnataka High Court's order of 8 July 2026 in W.P. No. 19241 of 2026 shows the sequence: a man on bail left for Oman without the trial court's leave, a Look Out Circular and a warrant followed, and he was taken into custody on landing at Calicut. If your order is silent, no section of the Sanhita stops you leaving, but the court seized of the case can impose a condition at any stage, as the Supreme Court did on 4 June 2026 in Seesa Santosh v State of Telangana, holding that the accused need not deposit his passport but "shall not be entitled to fly out of the country" except with the Sessions Court's permission.
Key takeaway. Release of a deposited passport is not permission to travel. In Seesa Santosh the Magistrate released the passport while clarifying that the release "would not, by itself, amount to permission to leave the country", and the Supreme Court upheld that order. Ask for both, in one application.
Which court do I ask: the one that granted bail, the trial court, or the High Court?
The court that imposed the condition, unless its order leaves travel permission to the trial court, as many anticipatory bail orders do. Before the chargesheet, that is the Sessions Court or High Court that granted anticipatory bail, or the Magistrate who granted regular bail. After cognizance, read the order: where it names the trial court, that court decides, and after committal the Sessions Court is the forum, which is why the Supreme Court in Seesa Santosh sent the accused to "the Sessions Court, after committal of the case, for permission to travel abroad". Section 483(1)(b) lets the High Court or the Court of Session modify a Magistrate's condition, and section 528, the old section 482, carries the High Court's inherent power.
Two mistakes recur. One is a writ petition to the High Court when the trial court can decide, which the Karnataka High Court dismissed on 8 July 2026 as "wholly misconceived". The other is forgetting that two courts may hold conditions over you at once: in Mahesh Kumar Agarwal v Union of India, decided on 19 December 2025, two courts had imposed no-travel conditions, and the Supreme Court read both orders together.
What should the application contain?
Everything a judge needs to measure the risk of your not coming back:
- The exact dates of departure and return and the itinerary, with tickets and the addresses where you will stay.
- The purpose, proved by a document: the employer's letter, the invitation, the admission letter or the hospital's appointment.
- Your record of attendance in the case, date by date. The High Court in Seesa Santosh relied on twelve appearances before the Magistrate, the Supreme Court in Parvez Noordin Lokhandwalla on sixteen visits to India.
- Your roots: family, property, employment and dependants in Karnataka.
- An undertaking to return by the date stated and to appear on every hearing after return. The Jharkhand High Court on 3 February 2026, in Cr.M.P. No. 1829 of 2025, released a passport deposited in 2014 on an undertaking stating, for each trip, how many days the petitioner would be abroad and when she would return.
- Security offered, not negotiated: a solvent surety, and where the court is likely to ask, a fixed deposit. The Delhi High Court's judgment of 17 April 2026 in W.P.(C) 17646/2022 and connected petitions records a trial court that allowed travel on three days' intimation, a complete itinerary and a fixed deposit of Rs 5 lakh, with the accused returning from fifteen to twenty trips. Regular travellers can ask for a standing regime of that kind.
- Where the passport is deposited, a prayer for its release for the period of travel and its redeposit on return, the form the Supreme Court used in Parvez Noordin Lokhandwalla, with the passport to be deposited with the investigating officer immediately on return.
Three figures from the orders themselves.
Eight weeks, sixteen visits
The Supreme Court allowed eight weeks in the United States in 2020 to an accused whose travel record showed sixteen return journeys to India in five years.
Three days, Rs 5 lakh
A Delhi trial court let an accused travel on three days' intimation, a full itinerary and a fixed deposit of Rs 5 lakh, and he returned from every trip.
One undertaking per trip
The Jharkhand High Court released a passport deposited in 2014 on the condition that each journey be preceded by an undertaking stating its length and the return date.
What does the court weigh, and what do Parvez Noordin and Frank Vitus require?
Proportion. In Parvez Noordin Lokhandwalla v State of Maharashtra, decided on 1 October 2020, the Supreme Court set aside a Bombay High Court refusal to let an accused on interim bail spend eight weeks in the United States to keep his permanent residence alive. Paragraph 21 is the test: "The conditions which are imposed by the court must bear a proportional relationship to the purpose of imposing the conditions", and "the lodging of an FIR should not in the facts of the present case be a bar on the travel". Paragraph 18, quoting the Court's 2019 order restoring such a condition, keeps the other side of the line: a condition requiring prior permission "could have been regulated, not deleted altogether".
Frank Vitus v Narcotics Control Bureau, decided on 8 July 2024, supplies the limits on the conditions themselves. Paragraph 7 holds that bail conditions "cannot be fanciful, arbitrary or freakish", paragraph 7.1 names "not travelling abroad without prior permission" as a legitimate condition while barring any condition that keeps "a constant vigil on the movements of the accused". Behind both decisions stand Satwant Singh Sawhney v D. Ramarathnam, decided on 10 April 1967, and Maneka Gandhi v Union of India, decided on 25 January 1978, which place the right to travel abroad inside personal liberty under Article 21.
The 2026 correction is Seesa Santosh. The Supreme Court set aside a High Court's permission to travel to the United States for treatment: nearly ten years after the chargesheet the trial had not begun, the accused had moved the courts at every turn, and the treatment was available in India, so the High Court had been indulgent. An allegation that he had used an earlier suspension of a Look Out Circular to leave without leave was noted, not examined. Paragraph 10 holds that "the right to a speedy trial is equally an integral facet of Article 21". Expect the judge to look at the age of the case and at who caused the delay.
Will my passport be released, and can I renew it while the case is pending?
A passport deposited as a bail condition is released by the court that took it, and an expired passport is renewed under a 1993 exemption on the criminal court's order. In Suresh Nanda v CBI, decided on 24 January 2008, the Supreme Court held that the police may seize a passport under section 102 of the Code, now section 106 of the Sanhita, but cannot retain or impound it, that "even the Court cannot impound a passport" under section 104, now section 109, because impounding is reserved to the passport authority under section 10(3) of the Passports Act after a hearing, and left open, at paragraph 17, whether a passport can be impounded as a condition of bail. On that reading, a deposit under a bail order is a bail condition you can ask the court to vary, not an impounding under the Act, and the Rajasthan High Court on 9 December 2025, in S.B. Criminal Misc. Petition No. 7062/2024, quashed a Magistrate's direction to the passport office to impound an accused's passport and directed its release on an undertaking.
Renewal runs through section 6(2)(f) of the Passports Act, 1967, which requires refusal where criminal proceedings are pending, and the exemption notification GSR 570(E) of 25 August 1993 under section 22. As the Supreme Court reproduces it in Mahesh Kumar Agarwal, the notification exempts an applicant who produces the court's order and fixes the validity: the period the court specifies, or one year where the order specifies none, renewable a year at a time while the order stands unmodified and the sanctioned travel is untaken, on an undertaking to appear before the court whenever required, which the Ministry of External Affairs circular of August 2014 prescribes on plain paper. Mahesh Kumar Agarwal then settles the main dispute: where the criminal courts have permitted renewal while keeping each trip subject to their leave, the passport office cannot treat section 6(2)(f) as "an absolute bar", and an order silent on the period means a shorter passport, "usually one year, and not that renewal must be refused altogether". The Karnataka High Court applied that judgment on 17 April 2026 in Crl.P. No. 4430 of 2026, quashing a Magistrate's refusal in a pending cruelty case, and on 10 December 2025, in W.P. No. 35660 of 2025, directed a short validity passport within thirty days to an accused on anticipatory bail, travel remaining subject to the court's permission.
Common mistake. Applying for renewal without first obtaining the criminal court's order and filing the undertaking, and then arguing with the regional passport office. The office cannot waive section 6(2)(f) on its own. Get the order first, state the validity you seek in it, and file the undertaking with the renewal.
What if a Look Out Circular also stands against me?
Then the court's permission is necessary but not sufficient, because the circular is a separate instruction from an originating agency to the Bureau of Immigration under a Home Ministry memorandum, lifted only by that agency's deletion request or by a court order conveyed to the Bureau through it. Ask the court granting leave to record that the circular exists and to direct the originator to suspend it for the dates allowed, and serve the order on the originator and the Bureau before you fly. What a circular is and how it is cancelled is explained in the circulars section of our guide on impounding an NRI husband's passport.
How long does it take, what does it cost, and what if the court refuses?
Weeks rather than days, because the application is heard on notice to the Public Prosecutor. Parvez Noordin Lokhandwalla took from a High Court refusal on 23 July 2020 to the Supreme Court's permission on 1 October 2020. File six to eight weeks before the journey. If the trial court refuses, the route is section 483 to the Sessions Court or the High Court where a Magistrate imposed the condition, a revision, the route in Seesa Santosh, or a petition under section 528 to the High Court where the Sessions Court did, and a special leave petition to the Supreme Court where the High Court did.
Fees turn on the court, the counsel and the listings, so these are indicative ranges, not a quotation: an application before the trial court for permission and release of the passport, Rs 15,000 to Rs 60,000, a petition to the High Court on refusal, Rs 50,000 to Rs 2,00,000, and a renewal application with the undertaking, Rs 10,000 to Rs 30,000 in professional charges with the prescribed passport fee.
Four things decide the order before a word is argued.
Dates, not a window
Courts grant named dates with a return day, and the Supreme Court has said a permission condition is regulated, not deleted, so open-ended prayers fail.
Attendance record
The order sheet showing every appearance is the strongest page in the file: sixteen visits carried Parvez Noordin, while twelve appearances could not outweigh ten years of delay in Seesa Santosh.
Passport back in court
Release for the trip comes with redeposit on return, at once or within the days the order fixes, in the form the Supreme Court used in 2020.
Every court with a condition
Where two courts hold conditions over you, each must give leave, and the passport office reads their orders together, as the Supreme Court did in December 2025.
What goes wrong in practice?
The application that fails is usually the one filed ten days before the flight, with a one-line prayer and no itinerary, so the prosecutor's first objection, that the court is being asked for a blank cheque, succeeds. The second failure is the passport: people obtain permission, find at the counter that it has expired, and lose the trip, when a renewal order could have been sought in the same application months earlier. A judge grants what is measurable: dates, documents, a record of attendance and a security the applicant has already arranged. A condition that cannot be kept is modified on application, never ignored.
Frequently Asked Questions
My bail order says nothing about travel. Can I simply go?
The Sanhita imposes no travel bar of its own, so a silent order with your passport in hand leaves you free to leave, but the court seized of the case can impose a condition at any stage, a pending case affects passport renewal under section 6(2)(f) of the Passports Act, and a Look Out Circular may exist without your knowledge. Check the order, the passport and the airport record before booking.
Which court do I apply to if the High Court granted my anticipatory bail?
The High Court, unless the case has since been committed or the trial court has been directed to decide such applications. A condition imposed by a Magistrate can be modified by the Sessions Court or the High Court under section 483(1)(b) of the Sanhita, and the court trying the case can always regulate travel while the trial runs.
Can the court refuse only because an FIR is pending against me?
Not on that ground alone. The Supreme Court held in Parvez Noordin Lokhandwalla that the lodging of an FIR should not in itself bar travel, and that conditions must be proportionate to the risk of the accused evading the trial. A long record of attendance and roots in India answer that risk.
Can the court keep my passport for the whole trial?
As a bail condition, yes, and the Supreme Court in Frank Vitus named passport surrender as a legitimate condition. Suresh Nanda holds that a court cannot impound a passport under the Code, because impounding belongs to the passport authority under section 10(3) of the Passports Act, but it left open the deposit of a passport as a condition of bail. Ask for release for each trip rather than for the condition to be deleted.
The passport office refused my renewal because a case is pending. What do I do?
Obtain an order from the criminal court permitting renewal and stating the validity you seek, file the undertaking prescribed under GSR 570(E), and apply again. The Supreme Court in Mahesh Kumar Agarwal held that section 6(2)(f) is not an absolute bar once the criminal courts have permitted renewal, and the Karnataka High Court applied that in April 2026.
How many days before the trip should I apply?
Six to eight weeks, because the application is heard on notice to the prosecutor and may be adjourned once, and longer where the passport must be renewed after the order. Applications filed days before a flight are the ones most often refused.
What if I return late or miss the redeposit date?
You are in breach of a condition of your bond, which under sections 480(5) and 483(3) of the Sanhita lets the court direct your arrest and cancel bail, and the court will remember it at every later application. If a genuine emergency delays you, apply from abroad through counsel for an extension before the date passes.
Does a court order permitting travel also lift a Look Out Circular?
No. The circular is a separate instruction to the Bureau of Immigration and is removed only by the originating agency's deletion request or a court order conveyed to the Bureau through that agency. Ask the court to deal with the circular expressly, and serve the order on the originator before you travel.
This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a qualified advocate for advice on your specific situation.
