Document Fragment View

Matching Fragments

9. On the other hand, learned counsel representing respondent-Union of India has filed his response to the petition filed by the petitioner, wherein it has been stated that as per Section 6 (2) (f) of the Passports Act, 1967, the passport authority shall refuse to issue passport or travel document for visiting any foreign country, if proceedings in respect of an offence alleged to have been committed by the applicant is pending before a criminal Court in India. It is further stated that the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, vide office memorandum dated 10.10.2019 has granted liberty to issue passport to the applicants against whom criminal cases are pending before a Court of India and who produce orders 4 of 11 Neutral Citation No:=2023:PHHC:104428 CRM-M-58653-2022 (O/M) -5- 2023:PHHC:104428 from the Court concerned permitting them to depart from India subject to the conditions mentioned in the said memorandum.

13. Here, it would be relevant to extract Section 6 (2) (f) of the Passports Act, 1967, which reads as under :-

"Section 6. Refusal of passports, travel documents, etc. (1) xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxx (2) Subject to the other provisions of this Act, the passport authority shall refuse to issue a passport or travel document for visiting any foreign country under clause (c) of sub-section (2) of section 5 on 5 of 11 Neutral Citation No:=2023:PHHC:104428 CRM-M-58653-2022 (O/M) -6- 2023:PHHC:104428 any one or more of the following grounds, and on no other ground, namely:--

3. It may be noted that applicants may be refused passports only on grounds mentioned under Section 6 (2) of the Passports Act, 1967. Section 6 (2) (f) of the Act states that the passport authority shall refuse to issue a passport or travel document to an applicant on the ground that proceedings in respect of an offence alleged to have been committed by the applicant are pending before a criminal court in India. GSR 570 (E) dated 25.08.1993 was introduced to give relief to such applicants against whom criminal proceedings are pending before any Court of law in India but who may need to travel abroad for some urgent business. With an undertaking under GSR 570 (E) and an order from the Court, an applicant could be issued a short validity passport of one year validity or for the period specified by the Court.

5. In view of the above, the following instructions may be adopted while processing the passport applications in respect of those applicants who may have criminal proceedings pending before a criminal court in India:

(i) The provisions of GSR 570 (E) may be strictly applied in all case. GSR 570 (E) is a statutory notification and hence, forms part of the Rules. It is to be noted that as per Section 5 (2) of the Passports Act, 1967, the passport authority shall by order in writing take a decision whether to issue or refuse a passport, after making such inquiry, if any, as it may consider necessary.