CHENNAI: A full bench of the Madras High Court in Madurai has ruled that renewing or reissuing a passport requires prior permission from the concerned court if a criminal case is pending, treating renewals similarly to fresh issues.
In the present case, the appellant, Jawahar Rajan, who was carrying on business in Colombo, was accused under Sections 120B, 294 (b), 406, 420 IPC. Though he applied for passport renewal under the Tatkal scheme, his application was not processed due to the adverse Police Verification Report. As the Regional Passport Officer sought an explanation, the appellant appeared before the officer and explained. However, the application was not processed and thus the appellant approached the court.
The single judge took note of two conflicting division bench decisions. In the first order, the bench had directed the officer to re-issue the passport without insisting on prior permission from the court where the criminal case was pending. The second order held that prior permission from the court in which the applicant was facing trial was mandatory for re-issuance. Thus, the single judge framed the following question of whether the passport re-issue/renewal should be treated as the same as the fresh issuance, or just a renewal case for consideration by a larger bench.
In response, the bench comprising Justice G Jayachandran, Justice S Srimathy, and Justice KK Ramakrishnan noted that the Passport Act was enacted to regulate the departure of Indian citizens and other persons from India and handle related matters.
The bench noted that a person facing criminal proceedings is not absolutely disentitled from getting a passport, but it was subject to the permission of the criminal court where the case was pending.
In cases in which an FIR was registered, the Investigating Officer should furnish clearance mentioning the nature of the case and the stage of the investigation, the Bench clarified, adding that it was for the Passport Authority to decide the applications based on the police report.
In the present case, because a criminal case was pending against the applicant, the court directed him to get prior permission of the court concerned and submit the same along with his application.