MUMBAI, March 19 -- The Bombay High Court on Tuesday pulled up the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) for declining to process the exit permit of a US national accused of practising human sacrifice and black magic, despite a clear permission from the sessions court to allow him to travel abroad. Directing the FRRO to process his exit permit within two days, a single-judge bench of justice NJ Jamadar questioned whether the investigating agency can be permitted to overreach the court's orders by filing an objection with the FRRO. The US national, James Watson, was named as an accused by the Bhiwandi police last year for offences related to religious conversion and wrongful restraint of individuals under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Maharashtra Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and Other Inhuman, Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act, 2013, and for violating his visa conditions under the Foreigners Act, 1946. Watson was released on bail in October 2025, on the condition that he would not travel abroad without the court's permission. Subsequently, he sought permission to travel to the US to meet his mother, who he said is suffering from breast cancer. The sessions court on February 27 permitted Watson to travel abroad from March 9 to April 18. However, on March 10, the FRRO informed him that his exit permit could not be processed because the police had raised objections to his travel permit, prompting Watson to move the high court. The high court on Tuesday held that the FRRO shall have due regard to the order passed by the sessions court. It observed that the "judicial order of a competent court cannot be denuded of its meaning and content in an indirect manner". Till the order permitting the applicant to travel abroad is in force, it commands obedience by the authorities, the court added. The bench clarified that if the police were aggrieved by the sessions court's order, the proper course for it was to immediately challenge the order before the appropriate court. "The FRRO was not at all justified in refusing to process the application further on the ground of objections raised by the investigating agency," it said, while disposing of the matter....