{"id":22964,"date":"2024-05-01T10:59:56","date_gmt":"2024-05-01T05:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=22964"},"modified":"2025-04-06T23:16:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-06T17:46:20","slug":"look-out-circulars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/look-out-circulars\/","title":{"rendered":"What are Look Out Circulars (LOCs)?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About Look Out Circulars (LOCs):<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A LOC is an instrument issued by the government as a <strong>directive to<\/strong> its <strong>immigration authorities to restrict<\/strong> and regulate the <strong>physical movement of a person.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The <strong>immigration department<\/strong> is <strong>tasked to stop<\/strong> any <strong>such individual<\/strong> against whom such a notice exists <strong>from leaving or entering the country<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Law enforcement agencies often use LOCs as a coercive measure to stop any individual wanted or under suspicion by the police or an investigating agency from leaving or entering the country <strong>through designated land, air, and sea ports.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>LOCs are <strong>usually issued by the police, intelligence agencies<\/strong>, or other government agencies <strong>authorised by the Ministry of Home Affairs<\/strong> (MHA).\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>LOC <strong>does not have express statutory backing<\/strong> in legislation, the <strong>power to issue LOCs<\/strong> and their regulation <strong>stems from the executive in<\/strong> the form of an <strong>Office Memorandum issued by the MHA<\/strong> in 2021, which <strong>provides consolidated guidelines<\/strong> for opening LOCs against Indian citizens or foreigners.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Guidelines:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The guidelines categorically provide that LOCs can <strong>only be opened in criminal or penal cases, <\/strong>and the reason for the LOC must be indicated with the issue of the circular.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>If there is no criminal or penal case<\/strong> pending, the LOC cannot be issued, and <strong>agencies can only request<\/strong> that <strong>they be informed of departure or arrival.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>However, the guidelines provide that <strong>in exceptional cases<\/strong>, an LOC may be <strong>issued<\/strong> against an individual <strong>even when the case is not a criminal case<\/strong>. This is in specified circumstances, <strong>such as when it is detrimental to the \u201csovereignty,<\/strong> or <strong>security, or integrity of India<\/strong>\u201d, the \u201c<strong>bilateral relations with any State<\/strong>\u201d, or to the \u201cstrategic and <strong>economic interests of India<\/strong>\u201d.<\/li>\n<li>LOCs are also <strong>permitted in cases<\/strong> where the individual is likely to engage in <strong>terrorism or offences against the State <\/strong>or when <strong>such departure <\/strong>would <strong>not be \u201cin the larger public interest\u201d.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>LOCs <strong>cannot be issued unless basic details<\/strong> \u2014 including name\/parentage, passport number, and date of birth \u2014 <strong>are available<\/strong>, and such requests must be constantly monitored.<\/li>\n<li>It is the <strong>responsibility of<\/strong> the <strong>originator to constantly review the LOC requests<\/strong> and proactively provide additional parameters to minimise harassment to genuine passengers.<\/li>\n<li>It is also required that any <strong>LOC issued must be reviewed on a quarterly<\/strong> and <strong>annual basisby agencies that request<\/strong> such restrictions, and the result of the review must be <strong>informed to the MHA.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>MHA<\/strong> has categorically <strong>transferred the legal consequences <\/strong>of issuing an LOC<strong> to the originating agency, <\/strong>even though such OMs are issued by the Bureau of Immigration.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The power to issue <\/strong>such OMs and LOCs is <strong>sourced from The Passports Act, 1967,<\/strong> the key legislation for the grant of passports, travel documents, and \u201cendorsements\u201d to travellers at the time of emigration or immigration.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1: What is Immigration?<\/h3>\n<p>Immigration is the process of moving to a new country or region with the intention of staying and living there. People may choose to immigrate for a variety of reasons, such as employment opportunities, to escape a violent conflict, environmental factors, educational purposes, or to reunite with family. Business travelers and foreign students, for example, typically do not qualify as immigrants even though they spend time in a foreign country.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-law\/high-court-banks-debtors-abroad-9299608\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Why High Court said banks can\u2019t stop debtors from going abroad<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Look Out Circular is an instrument issued by the government as a directive to its immigration authorities to restrict and regulate the physical movement of a person. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":22965,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}