How to Travel Abroad When a Criminal Case Is Pending

Do you need permission to travel abroad with a pending criminal case?

It depends on what stands in your way. There is no general law that bars every accused person from leaving India. The right to travel abroad is part of personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution, as the Supreme Court held in Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978), and in Satish Chandra Verma v. Union of India (2019) it called the right to travel abroad an important basic human right. A pending case limits that right only through a specific order or provision.

There are four common restrictions. First, a bail or anticipatory bail order that says you shall not leave India without permission. Second, a passport surrendered to the court or police as a bail condition, or impounded under Section 10(3) of the Passports Act 1967. Third, a Look Out Circular opened at the request of the police or another agency. Fourth, the simple duty to attend court on every date in a trial, which you cannot meet from abroad without an exemption.

If none of these applies, for example where an FIR has been registered but you have not been arrested, have no bail order and no LOC, there is no court order to seek permission from. That does not mean travel is wise. If the investigating officer issues a notice under Section 35 BNSS (old Section 41A CrPC) while you are away, or treats your departure as flight, you may face an LOC and a harder road to anticipatory bail. Speak to your lawyer before booking.

If any restriction applies, travelling without permission is a serious mistake. Breaching a bail condition is a ground for cancellation of bail, and the court may issue a warrant. Our guide on what happens if you violate bail conditions explains how quickly that can unravel.

The law that governs foreign travel of an accused

Which court can give permission to go abroad on bail?

The court whose order imposed the restriction, or the court the order names, gives the permission. When Advocate B.K. Singh reads a client's bail order before a trip, he looks first at the exact wording of the travel condition, because 'without permission of this court' and 'without permission of the trial court' send the application to different benches, and filing in the wrong one wastes the weeks you have before the flight.

If the Delhi High Court granted bail and said 'shall not leave the country without prior permission of the trial court', you apply to the trial court in the relevant district complex, whether Tis Hazari, Saket, Patiala House, Karkardooma, Rohini, Dwarka or Rouse Avenue. If the order says 'this court', you apply to the High Court by an application in the disposed bail matter. The same applies to anticipatory bail granted by a Sessions Court.

Once a chargesheet is filed and the case is before a trial court, most Delhi bail orders send travel applications to that court, because it controls the trial dates. Where your passport was deposited with the trial court, the same court releases it for the trip. In cases investigated by the ED or the CBI, the special court at Rouse Avenue usually hears these applications.

The High Court comes in where the trial court refuses without good reason, where the condition was imposed by the High Court itself, or where the obstacle is an LOC or a passport refusal that needs a writ under Article 226. A writ against an LOC issued by an agency in Delhi is normally filed in the Delhi High Court even if you live elsewhere, because the order was made here.

What the court weighs before allowing travel

• Purpose of the trip. A named conference, a family wedding, a child's admission, medical treatment or an employer's assignment carries more weight than 'personal work'.
• Length of stay. A two-week trip is easier to allow than six months. Long stays need a stronger reason and more security.
• Roots in India. Property, family, a business or a job here suggest you will return. Courts look closely at accused persons whose family and assets are all abroad.
• Past conduct. Regular attendance at every date, compliance with earlier travel permissions and cooperation with the investigation count heavily.
• Nature of the offence and stage of the case. Serious offences, large financial frauds and cases at the evidence stage, where your presence is needed, make courts cautious.
• The prosecution's and complainant's objections. The court hears the prosecutor and, where relevant, the complainant, and their specific concerns can shape the conditions.
• Dates that fall during the trip. If a hearing falls while you are away, the court will want an exemption application and an assurance that the trial will not stall.

Step by step: applying for permission to travel abroad

1. Read the bail order and check your passport

   Note which court must grant permission and whether your passport is with the court, the police or you. Check its validity; many people discover an expiring passport only after permission is granted.

2. Fix the purpose and dates

   Get an invitation letter, an employer's letter, a hospital appointment or a wedding card. Make tentative bookings rather than paying for non-refundable tickets.

3. Draft the application and affidavit

   State the case details, the purpose, the exact dates, the address and phone number abroad, your roots in India and your record of attendance. Offer an undertaking to return by a fixed date and to appear on the next date.

4. File and serve the prosecution

   File in the right court and give an advance copy to the prosecutor, and to the complainant where the court requires. The court usually calls for a reply from the investigating officer.

5. Attend the hearing

   The court hears both sides and may ask about your travel history, property and family. Answer directly. If the court proposes conditions, be ready to accept them.

6. Comply with the conditions

   Furnish the FDR or security, file the itinerary and collect your passport if it was deposited. Keep certified copies of the order for the airport.

7. Return and report

   Come back on time, redeposit the passport if required and file a compliance affidavit with your travel record. This makes your next application much easier.

Advocate B.K. Singh tells clients to file the travel application at least three to four weeks before the flight, with tentative bookings and a clear return date. In his experience, courts are far more willing to allow a trip that has been planned openly than one presented a few days before departure with paid tickets as a fait accompli.

Time and cost for a travel permission

Documents for a travel application

Conditions courts usually attach

Delhi courts rarely grant permission without conditions. The commonest is a security, usually an FDR in the name of the court or a security bond, in an amount the court fixes. In money cases, the amount can be linked to the sum in dispute. It is released after you return and file proof of compliance.

Other conditions include filing the full itinerary and addresses abroad, keeping a phone number active and sharing it with the investigating officer, returning by a fixed date, informing the court on return, redepositing the passport, not contacting witnesses and appearing on the next date. Courts sometimes ask for an undertaking from a family member or the surety. Some orders require you to report to the Indian mission or to the IO by email.

Read the conditions carefully and ask for practical adjustments at the hearing, not after. If the court sets a return date that clashes with a flight schedule, say so before the order is signed. A request to extend the stay must be made before the return date, by application through your lawyer, with reasons and proof. Overstaying without permission, even by a few days, is treated as a breach and will be remembered at your next application.

Frequent travellers: repeated trips and relaxing the travel condition

Exporters, consultants, seafarers and people with family abroad often need to travel several times a year. Filing a fresh application before every trip is slow and expensive, and courts know it. After an accused has travelled and returned on time two or three times, many Delhi courts are willing to consider a broader order: permission to travel for business during a fixed period, on condition that each trip is intimated in advance to the court and the investigating officer, with the itinerary and a return date.

A second option is to ask the court that imposed the condition to modify it. The travel condition in a bail order is not frozen for ever. Where the case has been pending for years, you have attended every date and the evidence of the main witnesses is over, an application to relax the condition, for example from 'prior permission' to 'prior intimation', has a real chance. The application goes to the court that granted bail, which in a High Court bail order means the High Court, unless the order itself delegated the matter to the trial court.

Courts are slower to relax conditions in serious offences, in large financial frauds and where the accused has family and assets mainly abroad. In such cases, the realistic aim is a well-documented permission for each trip rather than a general relaxation. The bail conditions Delhi courts commonly impose, and how they are varied, are discussed in our guide on common bail conditions imposed by the Delhi High Court.

If you need travel to be built into the bail order from the start, ask for it when bail is argued. The service page on permission to travel abroad while a case is pending explains how such terms are framed, and what courts have accepted for people whose work depends on travel.

Passport problems: renewal and reissue while a case is pending

Many people get court permission and then find their passport cannot be renewed. Section 6(2)(f) of the Passports Act allows refusal where criminal proceedings are pending before a court in India. The government notification GSR 570(E) of 1993 lets the passport office issue a passport if the criminal court permits, and many Delhi courts pass a specific order allowing renewal or reissue.

An MEA office memorandum of 10 October 2019 treats a case as 'pending' for Section 6(2)(f) only after a court has taken cognizance. Before that, an FIR alone should not ordinarily block a passport. In Mahesh Kumar Agarwal v. Union of India (2025), the Supreme Court directed the issue of a full-validity passport where the criminal courts had permitted renewal, rather than a short-validity one.

If the passport office refuses or impounds your passport, there is an appeal under Section 11 of the Passports Act, and a writ lies in the High Court. Our guide on passport refusal because of a pending case covers these steps, and the service page on passport refusal, impounding and renewal explains the High Court route.

Look Out Circulars: the problem at the airport

An LOC is an instruction to immigration to stop, detain or report a person at the border. It can be opened at the request of the police, the ED, the CBI and certain other authorities, and, under the guidelines, on the request of public sector banks. It works independently of court orders. You can have a travel permission from the trial court in one hand and still be stopped at IGI Airport because an LOC is live.

Before you travel, check whether an LOC exists. You will not usually be told it has been opened, though your lawyer can ask the investigating agency and, if needed, seek directions from the court. If there is one, ask the agency to withdraw it on the basis of the court's permission, or ask the court that granted permission to direct the agency to suspend it for the trip. The Delhi High Court has dealt with many such cases since Sumer Singh Salkan v. Asstt. Director (2010).

LOCs requested by banks to recover loans have been the subject of several High Court rulings that treat them as an improper use of the power, and the law there is still moving, so check the current position. Our guides on how to remove a Look Out Circular and on LOCs in bank loan disputes go into detail.

NRIs with a pending case in Delhi

For an NRI, the question is not a short trip but going back to live and work abroad while the case continues. Courts in Delhi do allow this in suitable cases, typically with an undertaking to return for specific dates, an exemption from personal appearance under Section 355 BNSS for the rest, a lawyer to represent you, and security. Appearance by video for some hearings is now possible under Section 530 BNSS, at the court's discretion.

Courts look closely at whether the NRI has cooperated, whether the trial can proceed without him and whether the complainant, often a spouse in matrimonial cases, has a genuine fear that he will never return. Offering specific commitments, such as appearing in person for framing of charge and examination under Section 351 BNSS (old Section 313 CrPC), makes a court more comfortable.

If you are abroad and an FIR has just been registered, the question is anticipatory bail rather than travel permission. Our guide on whether an NRI can get anticipatory bail from abroad explains how Delhi courts approach that.

Travel during the investigation, before the chargesheet

If you are on anticipatory bail with a travel condition while the police are still investigating, apply to the court that granted it. The court will usually ask the investigating officer whether your presence is needed for questioning. If you have joined the investigation and answered every notice, that reply is usually favourable or neutral.

Give the investigating officer advance notice of your trip in writing, with your contact details abroad. It costs you nothing and removes the argument that you left without telling anyone. If you have an interim protection order from the High Court in a quashing petition, check whether it carries travel conditions; many do not, but some do, and the High Court then decides the application.

If permission is refused

A refusal is not the end. If the trial court refuses, you can file a fresh application when circumstances change, for example with a more specific purpose, a shorter trip or higher security. You can also challenge the order by revision before the Sessions Court or by a petition before the Delhi High Court under Section 528 BNSS or Article 227 of the Constitution, depending on which court passed it.

Where travel is urgent, such as a parent's serious illness abroad, the High Court can hear the matter quickly on urgent mentioning. Bring the medical papers and the refusal order. The High Court will usually examine whether the trial court weighed the right factors rather than substitute its own view. The service page on permission to travel abroad during a criminal case explains how such petitions are framed.

For complainants and victims

A complainant who fears that the accused will not return can oppose the application, ask for higher security, ask that the passport be redeposited on return, and ask the court to require the accused's appearance on specific dates. In serious cases, a complainant can bring to the court's notice any history of leaving India or any assets moved abroad.

If the accused has left without permission, inform the court with whatever proof you have and ask for steps to cancel bail and secure his presence. The prosecution can ask the agency to open an LOC. Courts take breaches of travel conditions seriously, and complainants who document them usually get a hearing.

Mistakes that lead to refusal or worse

• Booking non-refundable tickets first. It looks like the court's permission is being taken for granted.
• Vague purpose. 'Business work' with no letter or invitation rarely persuades a court.
• Ignoring passport validity. Permission is useless if the passport expires mid-trip or cannot be renewed.
• Assuming court permission clears an LOC. Check separately and get the LOC suspended or withdrawn.
• Overstaying. Even a short overstay without permission can lead to cancellation of bail and a warrant.
• Not filing a compliance affidavit on return. Your next application will be judged on how you handled this one.

What to do this week

Read your bail order and note which court must give permission. Check your passport's validity and whether an LOC exists. Collect a letter or document showing the purpose of the trip, make tentative bookings and gather proof of your roots in India. Then get the application filed at least three to four weeks before your intended date of travel.

For advice on your papers or updates on the law, you can contact Advocate B.K. Singh.