A Delhi court on Saturday upheld an order directing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to withdraw the lookout circular against Amnesty International India Board chair Aakar Patel, news agency PTI reported.
"LOC issued against Patel is bad in law, hence cannot sustain. Order of trial court quashing the LOC does not suffer from any infirmity and is a well reasoned order based on principle of law," the court said.
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Special Judge Santosh Snehi Mann, however, set aside the direction to the CBI director to give a written apology to Patel, acknowledging "lapses" on the part of his subordinate.
The judge also revoked the magisterial court's direction to "fix accountability of CBI officials for issuance of LOC", and directed Patel not to leave country without the magisterial court's permission.
The court made the observations in its order passed on the CBI's appeal against the magisterial court's order.
On April 7, the metropolitan magisterial court had directed the probe agency to withdraw the LOC immediately and apologies to Patel and file a compliance report by April 30.
Patel had approached the magisterial court claiming that he was stopped by immigration authorities at the Bangalore International Airport, while he was boarding a flight to the US.
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The application had claimed that the action was taken despite an order by a Gujarat court granting him permission to travel abroad.
The judge said that CBI's apprehension that Patel might not appear before the court for the trial, which the agency made a ground to issue the LOC on, did not fall in the situation and circumstances required for issuing the LOC as per law.
(With PTI inputs)
