HC allows passports to be returned to Ryan honchos

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has allowed the passports of Augustine and Grace Pinto, trustees of Ryan International group of institutions, to be returned to them after the Punjab and Haryana high court granted them bail in the issue of the murder of a seven-year-old student on the premises of a school run by the group in Gurgaon in September.

The Pintos had been asked to turn in their passports to the Azad Maidan police station after the investigating agency and the father of the victim had aired apprehensions of the Pintos fleeing the country before the investigation in the case was completed.

Justice A.S. Gadkari, while hearing the criminal application filed by Dr Augustine Pinto, the founder of the group, and his wife Grace Pinto, managing director of the group, seeking return of the passports in light of the HC of Punjab and Haryana granting them pre-arrest bail and the Supreme Court rejecting the appeal of Barun Thakur, the father of the child — Pradyuman Thakur — against the Punjab and Haryana HC order.

While seeking the return of the passports of the Pintos, which had been deposited with the Azad Maidan police on September 14, senior advocate Nitin Pradhan requested the court to order the return them so that they could seek appropriate permissions from the HC of Punjab and Haryana for travelling abroad.

After hearing the submissions, the court held that in light of the prearrest bail granted by the HC of Punjab and Haryana the apprehensions of the investigating agency did not survive and hence the passports could be returned and disposed off the application.