The Supreme Court set aside a July order of the Bombay High Court and allowed a person accused in a cheating and forgery case to travel to the US as "serious consequences would ensue in terms of the invalidation of the Green Card if he were not permitted to travel."
"The conditions which a court imposes for the grant of bail -in this case temporary bail -have to balance the public interest in the enforcement of criminal justice with the rights of the accused," said Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice Indira Banerjee, allowing Parvez Lokhandwalla to travel to the US for eight weeks, in their order earlier this month.
The SC observed that between 2015 and 2020, Lokhandwalla had travelled between the US and India 16 times, even after an FIR was lodged against him in 2014. On July 23, the HC had rejected his plea to relax a condition of interim bail granted on May 19, against travelling abroad. Lokhandwalla, an Indian citizen, moved the Supreme Court.
His counsel Subhash Jha said it was mandatory for him to return to the US within a stipulated period else he would fall foul of conditions to revalidate his Green Card.
State government counsel Sachin Patil opposed his plea saying he had violated conditions of surety and surrender in his eight-week bail. But Jha said due to the pandemic, the HC had regularly extended all interim orders, which included his interim bail and he had sought modification of bail condition to let him travel to the US.
Source Link
Picture Source :