Passport Can Be Refused Only If Court Has Taken Cognizance Of Pending Criminal Case: Bombay HC Directs Passport Authorities To Process Application Ignoring Adverse Police Report
The Bombay High Court directed the Passport Authority to process an individual's passport application, noting that the Court had not taken cognizance of the criminal case against him. The Court noted that the trial court had merely ordered an inquiry under Section 202 of CrPC on a private complaint against the petitioner, which order had also been stayed.
The Court was hearing a Writ Petition seeking an order and direction to Respondent to approve the pending Application of the Petitioner for renewal of passport and issue the passport for the full period of 10 years.
The bench of Justice B.P. Colabawalla and Justice Firdosh P. Pooniwalla observed, “it certainly cannot be argued that cognizance has been taken by any Court, as contemplated in the said provision, because only an enquiry has been ordered under Section 202 of the Cr.PC., and which order also has been stayed by this Court. Once this is the case, we find that the decision taken by the Passport Authority is in fact contrary to the Office Memorandum issued by the Government of India, Ministry of External Affairs and which we have reproduced above.”
Advocate Y.C. Naidu appeared for the Appellant and Adv. Pratik Irpatgire appeared for the Respondent.
The Court noted that the Petitioner's application for passport re-issuance was not processed due to an adverse police report indicating that a criminal proceeding is pending against him and an application under Section 14 of the SARFAESI Act, 2002 is pending.
Relying on the proceedings in Kokila Kartik Bhatt Vs. Union of India & Ors. [Writ Petition (L) No.14486 of 2024 decided on 26/06/2024] the Court said that proceedings pending under Section 14 are not really criminal proceedings but are of a civil nature.
The Court referred to the Office Memorandum dated October 10, 2019, which clearly stated that merely filing an FIR and having cases under investigation do not fall within the scope of Section 6(2)(f) of the Passport Act, 1967 and a criminal proceeding is considered "pending" only when a case is registered before a Court of law and the Court has taken cognizance of it.
Accordingly, the Court held that the passport authorities were not justified in not processing the Petitioner’s Application for issuance of a passport.
Finally, the Court disposed of the Writ Petition.