Supreme Court orders notification of registration officer when granting bail to foreigners
While granting bail to a foreigner, the court must issue a direction to the state or the prosecuting agency to immediately communicate the order to Foreign Registration Officer concerned for further communicating it to all the authorities concerned, including the civil authorities.
“If such information is furnished, it will enable the authorities under the (Foreigners) Act to take appropriate steps in accordance with the law,” a bench led by AS Oka said.
“A copy of this order shall be forwarded to Registrar Generals of all the high courts, who in turn will forward the copies of the order to all the criminal courts in the respective states,” said the bench – which also included Justice Ujjal Bhuyan.
The bench, however, said, “we do not see any propriety in issuing a direction that either the civil authority or the registration officer should be made a party to a bail application filed by a foreigner or a notice of the bail application be issued to the said authorities.”
The top court said, “The reason is that the authorities under the Act have no locus to oppose bail application filed by a foreigner unless bail is sought where the allegation is of the offence punishable under Section 14 of the Act. The impleadment of the civil authority or registration officer in all bail applications filed by foreigners may result in unnecessary delay in deciding the bail applications,” it said.
The order came on a petition filed by Frank Vitus – a Nigerian national and a accused in a drugs case – challenging the Delhi High Court’s 2022 order requiring him to drop a pin on Google Maps to ensure that his location was available to the investigation officer of the case as a condition for his release on interim bail. A similar condition was imposed on a co-accused.
The bench had on July 8, 2024, ruled that courts cannot order an accused to share his Google pin location as a condition for grant of bail to enable the police to constantly track his movements, virtually peep into his privacy.
“Imposing any bail condition which enables the police/investigation agency to track every movement of the accused released on bail by using any technology or otherwise would undoubtedly violate the right to privacy guaranteed under Article 21 (right to life and liberty)… This cannot be a condition of bail,” it said.
However, if a Foreign Registration Officer or civil authority must be made a party to a bail application filed by a foreigner or not was left open to be decided at a later stage.
After analysing provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946, the Foreigners Order, 1948, and the Registration of Foreigners Rules, 1992, the top court said the authorities under these laws have powers independent of the criminal court’s jurisdiction to grant bail.
It is unnecessary to make civil authorities or registration officers a party in bail applications filed by foreigners as they have no locus standi, the bench ruled.
