Mondaq has recognised Nihit Nagpal of S.S. Rana & Co. in its Thought Leadership Awards, Autumn 2024. His article on Look-Out Circulars, co-authored with Akif Abidi, placed first (#1) for India in Immigration, one of two first places that made S.S. Rana & Co. a Top Firm for India in the same edition.
About the Mondaq Thought Leadership Awards
Mondaq is an online publisher of legal, regulatory and financial commentary written by law firms and advisers around the world, and its awards site is co-branded with The Legal 500. Its Thought Leadership Awards recognise the authors whose articles readers turn to most.
Who qualifies: The awards draw on articles published on Mondaq by contributing firms and their authors, with separate results for each country and for a range of topics, including Immigration.
How winners are chosen: Mondaq decides the awards on total readership during the award period.
The format: For each country and topic, Mondaq names the top three placings. A first place means the article drew more readers than any other Indian article in that topic.
What the award recognises
The recognised article, Look-Out Circular (LoC): Law, Rules And Cases, was published on 17 July 2024. It explains:
What a Look-Out Circular is: An alert circulated to all exit and entry points so that immigration officials can stop an accused person from leaving India, used especially in financial crime cases where the risk of absconding is higher.
Where the power comes from: There is no specific penal provision for Look-Out Circulars. They are issued under Ministry of Home Affairs guidelines, drawing on wider powers under the Passports Act, 1967, the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the criminal procedure code.
How courts have responded: Starting from Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, courts have treated the right to travel abroad as part of personal liberty. The article traces decisions holding that a pending property dispute or a loan default alone cannot justify restricting travel, and a then-recent Delhi High Court order permitting a fintech founder facing a criminal case to travel abroad on conditions.
The gap in the law: The authors note the absence of exhaustive legislative or judicial guidelines on issuing and setting aside Look-Out Circulars, compared with the settled law on warrants and summons.
Travelling abroad while a case is pending
For individuals and business leaders facing investigations, a Look-Out Circular is only one of several restrictions on travel.
Passports: Under Section 6(2)(f) of the Passports Act, 1967, a passport can be refused if criminal proceedings are pending against the applicant before a court in India. A Government notification allows a passport to be issued in such cases where the court has permitted the person to travel.
Permission from the court: An accused person can apply to the trial court or the High Court for permission to travel. Courts commonly ask for the itinerary, the purpose of travel, security or an undertaking to return, and consider whether the person has cooperated with the investigation.
Challenging a Look-Out Circular: Because travel is protected under Article 21, a High Court can quash or suspend a Look-Out Circular that is not justified on the facts, for example where the person has cooperated throughout or the underlying dispute is essentially civil.
Criminal procedure provisions referred to in the article under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 are now found in the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, which replaced it on 1 July 2024.
About the authors
Nihit Nagpal: Nihit is part of S.S. Rana & Co.’s dispute resolution practice in New Delhi, and writes on developments in criminal, commercial and insolvency law.
Akif Abidi: Akif Abidi of S.S. Rana & Co. co-authored the article.
Recognition in Autumn 2024
| Award | Recognition | Recipient |
| Mondaq Thought Leadership Awards, India | #1, Immigration | Nihit Nagpal, Akif Abidi |
| Mondaq Thought Leadership Awards, India | #1, Data Protection | Anuradha Gandhi, Isha Sharma |
| Mondaq Thought Leadership Awards, India | Top Firms | S.S. Rana & Co. |
See the Immigration results, our page on the firm’s Autumn 2024 Top Firms recognition and its Spring 2024 Top Firms recognition. Each recognition is recorded on our Awards page.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Yes. Nihit Nagpal of S.S. Rana & Co., with co-author Akif Abidi, placed first (#1) for India in Immigration in the Mondaq Thought Leadership Awards, Autumn 2024.
“Look-Out Circular (LoC): Law, Rules And Cases”, published on 17 July 2024.
A Look-Out Circular is an alert circulated to immigration checkpoints at airports and seaports so that a person can be stopped from leaving India, or their movement tracked, usually because they are wanted in a criminal investigation. It is issued under guidelines of the Ministry of Home Affairs rather than a specific statute.
Yes. Under Section 6(2)(f) of the Passports Act, 1967, a passport can be refused if criminal proceedings for an offence are pending against the applicant before a court in India. A Government notification allows a passport to be issued in such cases where the court permits the person to travel.
Yes. In Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978), the Supreme Court held that the right to travel abroad is part of personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution, and can be restricted only by a fair, just and reasonable procedure established by law.
Often, yes. Courts can permit travel during a pending case, usually on conditions such as disclosing the itinerary, furnishing security or an undertaking to return, while weighing the risk that the person will not come back.
Write to info@ssrana.com with a short description of your matter, and the firm will connect you with him.
The article is available on ssrana.in.
For more information on Look-Out Circulars, Permission to Travel Abroad, Passport Impounding and Refusal, Quashing of FIRs, Anticipatory Bail, Bail Applications, White Collar Crime, Economic Offences, Criminal Breach of Trust, Cheating and Fraud, Commercial Litigation and Dispute Resolution in India write to us at info@ssrana.com.