Can’t refuse passport to those acquitted: HC

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 7

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that a passport cannot be refused to an accused acquitted in a criminal case even if an appeal against the acquittal order is pending. Unless the acquittal is converted into conviction, the accused would be deemed innocent, Justice Rakesh Kumar Jain of the High Court said.

The petitioner, Avtar Singh, was holding a passport valid up to April next year. He moved an application to the passport authority for reissuing it in a computerised format. However, he received a message that his passport had been cancelled as the police verification report was against him.

The petitioner told the Bench that he had not asked for renewal of his passport as it was yet to expire. The respondent authority got police verification done, which was not required in this case. The petitioner said the reason given for not issuing the passport was that a murder case was registered against him in April 2011 under Sections 302, 341 and 34 of the IPC and provisions of the Arms Act at Khalchian police station, Amritsar (Rural).

The petitioner argued that he was acquitted in the case, with the Amritsar Additional Sessions Judge noting in July 2015 that the prosecution had failed to prove the petitioner’s presence on the spot. It was also not able to prove that the petitioner fired at the victim (Karnail Singh).

The Bench was told that mere filing and pendency of two appeals against his acquittal was not a ground for denying the passport.

The counsel for the respondents referred to the Passports Act, under which the authority concerned can refuse a passport in cases where proceedings for an offence are pending.

Justice Jain said the objection was not sustainable because of presumption of innocence after acquittal. There was an error on the respondents’ part in not issuing the passport. “A direction is issued to the respondent to issue a machine-readable passport, which is valid up to April 17, 2019… The petitioner would be entitled to travel abroad after obtaining permission from the court.”