Criminal Antecedents Of Family Members Can't Be Taken Into Account To Assess Applicant's Character For Issuing Passport: MP High Court

In a recent ruling, the Indore Bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court held that criminal antecedents of family members cannot be taken into account in assessing applicant's character and application for the issuance of passport. The single-judge bench of Justice Subodh Abhyankar observed, “…the impugned order cannot be sustained in the eyes of law as the petitioner also enjoys all the fundamental rights as any other citizen of this Country, and the criminal antecedents of her husband and father-in-law cannot be taken into account to assess her character and her application for issuance of passport, as the respondents are required to pass the order only on the basis of the petitioner's character verification, and not that of her husband or father-in-law's criminal antecedents.” In the present case, the grievance of the petitioner was that despite being entitled to obtain a passport to travel abroad, the Regional Passport Authority rejected her application on the ground that her husband and father-in-law were offenders under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 and other offences, and her father-in-law is still absconding in many cases. A co-ordinate bench of the High Court in a writ petition filed by the petitioner had earlier directed the respondents to decide the petitioner's application afresh without taking into account the grounds of earlier rejection. The court concluded that the impugned order that rejected petitioner's application on the ground of criminal antecedents of family members cannot be sustained in the eyes of law.