Delhi HC dismisses Prashant Bhushan’s plea for fully valid passport

A Division Bench of Chief Justice G Rohini & Justice Jayant Nath today dismissed Prashant Bhushan’s petition where he had challenged the decision of the Ministry of External Affairs to deny him a passport of full validity, because of a pending criminal case..Bhushan had applied for a re-issuance of his passport in June 2014 since leaves in his passport booklet had been exhausted. He was informed that in order to get his passport re-issued, he needed to first obtain a NOC from the concerned court where criminal cases were pending against him. Being a founding member of India against Corruption (IAC), Bhushan was a part of protest held in Delhi in the year 2012 against the coal scam. As a result, cases were registered against him for violating Section 144 of the CrPC and participating in an unlawful assembly. These cases are pending in the Patiala House courts..Accordingly, Bhushan sought an NOC from the Patiala House Courts and the said NOC was granted, without any stipulation on time period or condition upon the reissue of the passport. But the passport was renewed only for a year as opposed to its full validity of 10 years. In his writ petition, Bhushan has challenged Notification No. GSR 570(E) issued in 1993. The notification states that a person against whom there is a pending criminal case may approach the court concerned seeking an order permitting him/her to depart from India..During the proceedings, observing the tenor of arguments made by Senior Advocate Jayant Bhushan who appeared for Bhushan, the Bench had suggested that the writ petition maybe amended to include the prayer of quashing Section 6 (2) (f) of the Passport Act on the ground that it is violative of Article 21 read with Article 14 of the Constitution of India..In its order, the Bench disagrees with the submission made by Bhushan on Section 6 (2) (f) as violating the Constitution. It states,.“Section 6(2)(f) of the Act cannot be interpreted as creating an absolute curtailment of the rights of an applicant for passport. As we could see Section 6(2)(f) has to be read with Section 22 which has empowered the executive to grant exemption to any person or class of persons…..….It is also not out of place to mention that the discretion exercised by the Metropolitan Magistrate is not final but it is always amenable to other remedies available under law. Thus, it is clear that the power conferred under Section 6(2)(f) of the Act is neither unguided nor unfettered and, therefore, the same cannot be regarded as arbitrary. The contention of the learned senior counsel for the Petitioner that Section 6(2)(f) has treated un-equals as equals and thus is violative of Article 14 of Constitution of India is equally without any substance.”.During arguments, Bhushan had continuously highlighted the fact that the Notification was ‘arbitrary’ because it made no distinction between the persons facing charges of committing heinous offences and those charged of a simple offence of participating in unlawful assembly. The Bench has also rejected this submission in its order where it says,.“The object behind incorporating clause (f) as one of the grounds for refusal of the issuance of passport appears to be that permitting a person facing criminal charges to go abroad is against the interest of the State and society at large. .As mentioned above, the restriction under Section 6(2)(f) is not absolute but the same can be relaxed in appropriate cases with the permission of the court in which the criminal proceedings are pending. Merely because such an order of the court is silent about the time limit, the applicant cannot claim a right for issuance of the passport for full validity period.”.The Court however, left it open for Bhushan to take necessary steps in order to renew his passport or to extend its validity..You can read the judgment here.