CBI court allows renewal of Punjab cop’s passport

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 17

Jagjit Singh, Special Judge, CBI court, Chandigarh, has directed the passport authorities to renew/reissue the passport of Raka Ghirra, the accused in an alleged graft case.

Raka Ghirra, a Punjab police official, had filed an application through advocate SPS Bhullar for the renewal of her passport.

The accused had sought the directions to the Regional Passport Officer to renew her passport, which expired on December 20, 2020. Bhullar submitted that the passport was not renewed on the grounds that the court case was pending and as such court, the permission from the court was required.

Public Prosecutor PK Dogra opposed the application by claiming that if the passport of the accused was renewed, she might flee the country and might not be available to face the trial.

After hearing the arguments, the CBI court stated that during the pendency of the case, nothing came on record that the accused at any stage tried to misuse her passport or tried to flee the country and, therefore, this apprehension of the CBI seemed to be misfounded. The court, while relying on the judgment of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in Harjinder Singh Bajwa vs. Union of India and other cases, stated that mere pendency of a criminal case was no ground to disallow such a prayer.

The court stated in the order that similar were the circumstances in the present case and there being no past history of the accused of any misuse of the passport, her application was allowed and the passport authorities were directed to renew/reissue the passport as per the rules on completion of all formalities by the accused.

The court further stated that to dispel the apprehension of the CBI that the case was at the final stage and that accused might misuse the passport if renewed, the accused is directed to deposit the passport, after renewal, with the court.