The Bombay High Court on Tuesday directed passport authorities to not reject actor Shiney Ahuja’s plea for passport renewal over his pending appeal against a rape conviction if he is otherwise eligible.
Ahuja, granted bail in 2011 in his maid’s rape case, had moved the HC for a 10-year passport renewal.
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HC had given him bail in the March 2011 trial court conviction awarding 7 years imprisonment but barred him from leaving India without permission. His appeal against conviction is still pending in HC.
In 2011, HC permitted Ahuja to travel abroad with complete itineraries. It had asked for his passport’s return for renewal.
Ahuja claimed that renewal of the passport for a period of one year is causing unnecessary hardship as some countries do not allow citizens of India carrying a passport of validity of less than six months to stay in that country.
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Hearing Ahuja’s interim plea filed by his counsel Karansingh Rajput, a single-judge bench of Justice Amit Borkar observed, “It appears that during the pendency of the present appeal passport of the applicant has been renewed six times. It is, therefore, unlikely that the applicant carries flight risk.”
The bench also noted that during pendency of the present appeal, there was no violation of bail conditions.
The High Court, disposing of the interim plea had held “the applicant has made out a case for direction to the passport authority to renew the applicant’s passport, provided he is otherwise liable for renewal of passport for ten years.”
The bench noted in the end, “Respondents passport authority and Union Government are directed that the application of Ahuja for renewal of passport for a period of ten years shall not be rejected on the ground of pendency of the present appeal, provided the applicant is otherwise eligible for renewal of passport.”
Actor Shiney Ahuja. (Express Archive) 
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