Banks have no power in law to either withhold or retain a passport issued by a foreign country or the Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card, the High Court of Karnataka has said.
Even if a customer voluntarily hands over the passport or the OCI card to the bank as a security measure, the bank will have to transmit these documents to the passport authority or the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FFRO) within 15 days to take action as per the law as the banks lack power to even keep these documents in their custody, the court said.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order while allowing a petition filed by Koshi Verghese, an Indian-born British national and OCI card holder, who is a director of city-based real estate firm.
The petitioner had deposited his British passport and OCI card with the erstwhile Vijaya Bank, now merged with Bank of Baroda, in 2018 while giving an undertaking that he would repay the housing loan to the tune of ₹5.5 crore of two persons. The deposition of these documents was till the realisation of the cheques that he had submitted to the bank. Later, the bank registered criminal proceedings against him and others for alleged breach of undertaking.
The Central government, in response to the petition, told the court that the bank had no authority to keep the passport or the OCI card.
In the present case, the court said, “The passport was not issued by any authority in this country. It is a passport issued by the passport office of Great Britain – United Kingdom. Therefore, no authority in this country would have the power to withhold the passport or impound the same. The bank, on the face of it, did not have any power even to retain the passport for four long years.”
On retaining the OCI card, the court said the card was granted by the Central government through the FRRO and the bank should have handed over the card to the FRRO even if it was handed over voluntarily by the petitioner.
While the petitioner claimed that he signed the undertaking on the insistence of the bank, which had contended that it was the petitioner’s voluntary decision.
The court directed its registry to release the passport and the OCI card, which the bank had last year submitted to the court during pendency of the proceedings, to the petitioner.
