Every citizen has legal right to a passport, rules Delhi high court | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: Every citizen has the legal right to a passport and the authorities cannot refuse its renewal merely on apprehensions that earlier passports might have been misused, the Delhi HC has held.

The HC was dealing with a petition by a person seeking a change in his date of birth mentioned in his passport after the authorities rejected his request to issue a new one with the corrected entries.
The officials had done so on the ground that the claim for correction did not appear genuine, pointing out that nearly 14 years had passed since his first passport was issued and that he “might misuse the document if renewed with a new date of birth”.

The HC rejected the stand, stressed that denial of passport seriously impedes the rights of a citizen and pointed out the authorities can refuse to renew a passport or cancel it only on grounds prescribed in law. The court said there was no material basis for rejecting the petitioner’s renewal application when annexed with valid government documents. “Every citizen has a legal right to hold a passport. The authorities can refuse to renew/cancel a passport only on grounds prescribed in law,” Justice Subramonium Prasad noted in a recent order. The only reason “being put forward by the respondent (passport officials) is a mere possibility that the earlier passports issued on the basis of birth certificates dated 11.02.2003 and 02.07.2007 could have been misused”, said the order.