Passport issuance or renewal is subject to the production of orders from the concerned Court permitting the applicant to depart from India, and participation in the criminal proceedings is essential.

ORDER :

[Prayer: Writ Petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, praying this Court to issue a Writ of Certiorarified Mandamus calling for the impugned clarification under Letter Ref.No.SCN/313006633/22, dated 20.07.2022 and to quash the same as unwarranted and unlawful and further to direct the first respondent herein to issue passport under File No.MD1064327265122 to the Petitioner herein within the time frame fixed by this Court.]

1. This Writ Petition is filed seeking issuance of a Writ of Certiorarified Mandamus calling for the impugned clarification under Letter Ref.No.SCN/313006633/22, dated 20.07.2022 and to quash the same as unwarranted and unlawful and further to direct the first respondent herein to issue passport under File No.MD1064327265122 to the Petitioner herein within the time frame fixed by this Court.

2. Heard the learned counsel appearing on either side and perused the materials placed before this Court.

3. The case of the Petitioner is that the Petitioner is the second son to my age old parents and has a fair chance of getting a job in abroad. The Petitioner came to know that the Petitioner has been falsely implicated in a criminal case in Crime No.298 of 2012 on the file of the second respondent for the offence under Section 454 and 380 of the Indian Penal Code. This was known to the Petitioner from the order impugned herein. Further there is also another criminal case against the Petitioner in Crime No.35 of 2022 for the offence under Section 341, 294(b), 323,324 and 506(ii) of IPC and Section 4 of TNPWH Act. In the meant i.e. the Petitioner applied for passport under File No. MD1064327265122. On police verification the passport authorites came to know about the above said two criminal cases pending against the Petitioner and hence passed the order impugned herein. Since the Petitioner’s request for passport was considered, the Petitioner has come forward with the present Writ Petition for the relief stated supra.

4. The learned Assistant Solicitor General of India and the learned Government Advocate(Crl.Side) appearing for the respondents 1 and 2 respectively, submitted that a case in C.C.No.413 of 2022 has been pending before the jurisdictional Magistrate and prayed for dismissal of this Writ Petition.

5. This Court had an occasion to deal with a similar issue in W.P.(MD) No.7056 of 2017 in the case of N.Chandrababu vs. the Sub Inspector of Police and another. The relevant portions in the order dated 21.04.2017 are extracted hereunder:

“3)..... At this juncture, it may be relevant to discuss the legal position with regard to the right of a person facing criminal prosecution to demand issuance of passport. To decide this issue, it may be necessary to extract the following legal provisions from the Passports Act, 1967.

Section 5(2) of the Passports Act, 1967

On receipt of an application under this section, the passport authority, after making such inquiry, if any, as it may consider necessary, shall, subject to the other provisions of this Act, by order in writing,-

(a) issue the passport or travel document with endorsement, or, as the case may be, make on the passport or travel document the endorsement, in respect of the foreign countries specified in the application; or

(b) issue the passport or travel document with endorsement, or, as the case may be, make on the passport or travel document the endorsement, in respect of one or more of the foreign countries specified in the application and refuse to make an endorsement in respect of the other country or countries ; or

(c) refuse to issue the passport or travel document or, as the case may be, refuse to make on the passport or travel document any endorsement. Section 6(2) of the Passports Act, 1967.

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 any one or more of the following grounds,