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13. Mr Parag Tripathi, the learned Senior Counsel, appearing on behalf of the appellant submitted that Section 10(3)(c), under which provision the appellant's passport has been revoked, requires application of mind of the authority concerned. This is inherent in the expression, ―in the interest of general public‖ appearing in Section 10(3)(c) of the Passports Act. The passport Officer while considering the applicability of Section 10(3)(c) of the Passports Act has to apply his own mind and he carries out a quasi judicial function. As such, he cannot act under the dictation of some other persons. He submitted that in the present case, the respondent No. 3 revoked the passport of the appellant without any application of mind and purely on the dictates of the Directorate of Enforcement as would be evident from the sequence of events. Therefore, the revocation order was clearly contrary to law and was liable to be set aside.

15. It was further submitted by Mr Parag Tripathi that in any event the non-appearance of the appellant was not without reason. He submitted that as indicated by the various replies furnished by the appellant, there was a serious threat to his personal safety. Of course, this has not been believed by the authorities below but, according to Mr Tripathi the perception of threat has to be taken from the stand point of the person involved. When the matter is considered in this light, it cannot be assumed that the non- appearance of the appellant pursuant to the said summonses was intentional and without any reason.

16. Mr Parag Tripathi also submitted that the only provision under FEMA which entails civil imprisonment is Section 14 thereof. Section 14 comes into play only when the penalty which is imposed under Section 13, after following the due process of Section 16, is not paid by the person on whom the penalty is levied. He submitted that this is not the case here at all inasmuch as all the complaints under Section 16(3) of FEMA are pending and none of them have fructified into an order of penalty.

20. For all these reasons, it was submitted by Mr Parag Tripathi that the orders dated 30.03.2011 passed by the respondent No. 3 and 31.10.2011 passed by the respondent No. 2 are illegal and bad in law and require to be set aside by this court. He also submitted that the impugned order dated 16.01.2013 passed by the learned single Judge also needs to be set aside because it does not take into consideration the above submissions in the correct light. He further submitted that the conclusion of the learned single judge that there were necessary jurisdictional facts before the Regional Passport Officer to revoke the appellant's passport was not correct. Neither was the conclusion of the learned single Judge that the Regional Passport Officer had exercised his powers of revocation of passport ―in the interest of general public‖. He also submitted that the learned single Judge had erred in concluding that the power to require the physical presence of an accused was not only applicable in respect of a witness but also in respect of a noticee / a person under investigation. For these reasons, he submitted that the impugned judgment dated 16.01.2013 passed by the learned single Judge also needed to be set aside and the passport of the appellant required to be restored.