Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Jan 30: High Court today quashed an order of a Passport Officer Srinagar which had denied passport to brother of a Hizbul Mujahideen militant.
A Single Bench of the High Court comprising Justice Ali Mohammad Magray today directed the Inspector General of Police (CID) to submit a fresh report within two weeks about the applicant which is not influenced by the track record of his relatives.
The applicant, Umar Ali, and his wife were denied passport for being relatives of a militant. The couple approached the court seeking directions to the authorities to issue passport for them as there is nothing adverse against them in the police records.
The petitioner had pleaded that the passport is refused to them on irrational, arbitrary, unjust, unfair and unreasonable grounds, thus violating the rights guaranteed to them under the constitution.
Justice Magray said the petitioner is being punished for the alleged sins of some other person and the order and report by the passport office and CID Department is also “violative” of the principles of natural justice.
The bench said that a person cannot be deprived of their fundamental right on a mere ground that his brother is a fugitive with an observation that there is not even an iota of allegation about the conduct or activities of the petitioner.
During the course of hearing, counsel for the Regional Passport Officer had stated that having no criminal record does not entitle a person to hold a passport and that grant of passport in favour of the petitioners attracted Section 6(2) and hence the same were refused.
In response to the passport application of Umar Ali, CID had reported that in the interest of the security and integrity of the state, the case of the petitioner was send as “Not Recommended”.
CID had said that it is possible that the petitioners are in fact going abroad on a special assignment of the militant group working in J&K and if the petitioners are allowed to go abroad on Indian Passport, they may indulge in activities harmful to the security and integrity of the state and India.
The CID report further had revealed that the brother of the petitioner crossed over LoC in 1990 for arm training and returned to this side and remained hardcore/active militant of Hizb-ul-Mujahidin till 2005 and then ex-filitrated back to PoK and is still there.
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