Passport Officer Can't Usurp Power Of Authority Issuing Birth Certificate Or Make Independent Enquiry Into Applicant's Date Of Birth: Rajasthan HC

The Rajasthan High Court has observed that Passport Authorities are not expected to make their own independent enquiry, if there is a dispute or differences with regard to the date of birth, place of birth or name entered in the passport, especially when such entries are made on the basis of records, produced by the passport holder.Justice Ashok Kumar Gaur held that the Passport Authorities are always within their competence to direct the parties to produce relevant documents either from the Authorities functioning under the Births & Deaths Registration Act or from the Judicial Magistrate or from the Civil Court, as the case may be.It added that on production of corrected documents, the Passport Authorities are required immediately to carry out necessary correction in the passport.It was stated by the court that if there is any mistake on the record already produced, based on which, entries were already made, then it is for the party, who seeks correction to produce the documents after carrying out necessary correction by the concerned.Essentially, the petitioner was having two birth certificates at one point of time and had approached the Court for directing the Authorities to cancel the earlier Birth certificate. She alleged that her birth date was erroneously recorded as 26.08.1989 instead of 26.08.1992. Now, she has approached the court for directing the Authorities to cancel the earlier birth certificate. The petitioner sought direction to quash and set aside the show cause notice and the Authorities' orders rejecting her passport. She further sought direction to the respondents to issue her passport on the basis of the Birth Certificate.The bench, while disposing of the petition, observed,"This Court further directs the petitioner to make fresh application to the Regional Passport Officer, Jaipur along with all supportive documents, including the certificate of date of birth of the petitioner, showing her to be born on 26.08.1992 and the respondent-Authorities shall consider the documents so submitted by the petitioner and will decide the application of the petitioner, preferably within a period of six weeks from the date of its receipt."In furtherance to this, the court ordered that the earlier birth certificate remains no more in existence and only the subsequent certificate of date of birth can be said to be a valid document, existing in favour of the petitioner and as such, she is required to be considered for showing her corrected date of birth in different documents including the passport document.The court observed that if the date of birth of the petitioner has correctly been shown by issuing a subsequent Birth Certificate, then she was within her right to reflect the correct birth date in her passport and accordingly, she had made applications for issuance of passport before the Authorities as the earlier passport was cancelled by the respondents.While considering the scope of power of Passport Authorities in the present case, the court opined that if the petitioner has been issued a birth certificate by the Authorities, showing her date of birth as 26.08.1992 and her previous birth certificate has been cancelled by the Competent Authority, then in such circumstances, the Passport Authorities could not have assumed the power of treating the birth certificate of the petitioner as having obtained by any fraudulent means."This Court finds that the Passport Authority has erroneously usurped power of the Authority, who is competent to issue the birth certificate under the provisions contained under the Act of 1969 and the Rules of 2000."Further, it was opined by the court that the Passport Authority can refuse to issue a passport under Section 5(2)(c) of Passport Act, 1967 on various grounds as enumerated in Section 6(2) from grounds (a) to (i). The court said that the perusal of the said Section does not bring the case of the petitioner in any of the contingencies, where her passport can be refused.The court said,"This Court finds that the notice dated 26.05.2020 if was asking the petitioner to give the explanation within 7 days, then the respondents have acted in arbitrary manner and as such, it shows their pre-determination to reject the application of the petitioner of passport and accordingly the communication dated 26.05.2020 is not found in accordance with law. The respondents on one hand communicated in email that they have refused to issue passport and in show cause notice they seek reply in 7 days. This Act is self contradictory."Sr. Adv. Kamlakar Sharma assisted by Adv. Madhusudan Rajpurohit and Adv. Prabuddha Sharma appeared on behalf of the petitioner while Adv. Manjeet Kaur appeared on behalf of the respondents.Case Title: Simran Raj @ Salma Nat v. Union Of India & Anr.Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Raj) 229Click here to read/ download Order

Passport Officer Can't Usurp Power Of Authority Issuing Birth Certificate Or Make Independent Enquiry Into Applicant's Date Of Birth: Rajasthan HC

ANIRUDH VIJAY

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