Right To Personal Liberty Includes Not Only Right To Travel Abroad, But Also To Possess Passport: Telangana High Court

The Telangana High Court has held that passport authorities cannot reject a person's application for passport renewal, on the ground that there is a pending criminal case against him.

“This Court opines that pendency of criminal case against the petitioner cannot be a ground to deny renewal of passport to the petitioner and the right to personal liberty would include not only the right to travel abroad but also the right to possess a Passport”, Justice Surepalli Nanda said.

The petitioner had claimed that he had made an application before the Regional Passport Office for renewal of his passport. However, the same was rejected on the ground that criminal proceedings were pending against him under Section 420 read with 34 of IPC. Hence, the petitioner approached the court by way of a writ petition, praying for directions to the passport authorities to renew his passport.

In arriving at the decision, Justice Nanda referred to the judgments passed by the Apex Court in Sumit Mehta v. State of NCT of Delhi, Menaka Gandhi v. Union of India and another and Satish Chandra Verma v. Union of India (UOI) and others.

The petitioner's plea was allowed, with a direction to the respondents to consider his application within a week without relating it to the criminal case pending against him.

Counsel for petitioner: P Lakshma Reddy

Counsels for respondents: NVR Rajya Lakshmi rep. for Dep. Solicitor General of India Gadi Praveen Kumar

Case Title: Ravikanti Venkatesham v. Union of India and Anr., W.P. No. 32906 OF 2023

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