More than 46,000 passport-holders in Bengal have adverse police reports against them and may face difficulty in renewing their passports.
Some of these passports are almost 10 years old and on the verge of expiry, said officials at the Calcutta passport office.
The office is trying to resolve the problem by sending the passport holders show-cause notices to allow them a chance to complete the police verification process, the officials said.
The majority of these passports are “fresh Tatkaal cases”, for which the police verification is done only after the blue book has been issued, officials said.
Show-cause notices have already been sent to around 15,500 people whose passports were issued between 2014 and 2017 and in 2021 and 2022.
The passports of around 8,000 of these people have been impounded because they did not respond to the show-cause notice or failed to produce documents related to criminality or nationality, which are mandatory to re-initiate the police verification. (See chart)
“Even those whose passports have been impounded have the option to re-apply and clear the police verification so we can re-issue them their passports,” said an official at the Calcutta Regional Passport Office (RPO).
The Calcutta regional passport officer, Ashish Middha, said the “special
pendency drive” has been started to complete the process of all passport applications in the Calcutta RPO. “The idea is to ensure that all pending cases are completed,” Middha said.
Passport-holders with an adverse police report may face difficulty in getting the documents renewed, passport officials said.
The show-cause notices that are being issued by the Calcutta RPO mention the reason why an adverse report had been filed by the police. They ask the passport-holder to visit the RPO on Brabourne
Road within 21 days of the receipt of the letter with all documents related to the passport application — in original and along with a set of photocopies.
“When the applicants visit the RPO in response to the notice, their documents are checked. If the papers are found to be in order, the passport office reinitiates the police verification process,” said an official.
“The passport is taken from the passport-holder and kept in safe custody at the RPO. We hand back the passport after a clear police verification report arrives.”
A senior official in the ministry of external affairs told this newspaper that all the
regional passport officers across the country have been asked to use their discretion in dealing with the old pending files.
“The police sometimes submit an adverse report just because they did not find the applicant when they visited his or her home. (But) It is
normal that someone who applies for a Tatkaal passport has the urgency to travel and may be abroad when the police visit his or her home for verification,” the official said.
All RPOs, he said, have been asked to identify such cases and give the passport-holders a chance to get a clear police report.
“An adverse report (by the police) is justified only when the applicant has a problem related to nationality and criminality. The Calcutta office has to remain vigilant because Bengal shares the international border with multiple countries and the chances of an applicant submitting a fake nationality document cannot be ruled out,” the official said.
