Passport office can’t act as CID mouthpiece: J&K High Court

The passport office had refused to issue Nazir’s passport based on a report from the J&K Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID). The court criticised the passport officer for acting on the CID report without analysing it. “Simply on the basis of the report of the J&K CID, which did not recommend to issue passport, the passport officer under the provisions of Passport Act cannot to shut his eyes and act on that,” Justice M A Chowdhary observed.

The court said the police verification report prepared by the CID was with regard to two applications, one by the petitioner and the other by her daughter, Mehbooba.

“It appears the passport officer had acted on the forwarding letter of CID, instead of analysing its report in detail. The report has exhaustively dealt with regard to petitioner’s daughter making references to her ideology and activities, which were termed as risk to the security of India. However, there is no mention with regard to the petitioner in the report… The appellate authority also seems not to have perused the PVR (police verification report) and upheld the order of the passport officer on the wrong premise of security without any foundation,” the court said.

“The decision taken by both, the passport officer as well as the appellant authority, is misplaced on account of security. At least, the passport officer should have, in the background of the facts, asked the police and the CID as to whether there is anything adverse against the petitioner. In such a situation without going into the PVR, refusal on part of the passport officer simply be termed as non-application of mind,” the court said.

“The passport officer has not to act as mouthpiece of the CID (nodal agency). When an authority is vested with power, the same is to be exercised judiciously and not arbitrarily as has been done in the instant case,” the court added.

The court observed that “there is no iota of allegation against Nazir for being a threat to the security of the state”.