PARAJIT LAL Vs. UOI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner was issued passport No. S-595351 by Regional passport Office, Jalandhar. On the strength of that passport, he travelled from jalandhar to Madrid-Spain. While in Madrid, the validity period of his passport expired. He, therefore, applied for a fresh passport through Indian Embassy at madrid whereupon, on August 23, 2004, he was issued another passport bearing No. E-2062596. However, on October 20, 2004, the Indian Embassy at Madrid wrote a letter to him asking him to appear before it with his new passport. In response to the said letter, he appeared before the Indian Embassy and on his appearance his passport bearing No. E-2062596 was seized on the ground that it was issued by mistake. The result is that the petitioner is without a passport and is not able to travel back to India. In these circumstances, one Sukhdev Singh who is a close relative of the petitioner submitted a representation addressed to the chief Passport Officer, Ministry of External Affairs dated july 18, 2007 requesting him to issue directions to Indian Embassy at Madrid to issue a passport to the petitioner as nine months have gone since he filed the representation.

(2.) IN view of the fact that the petitioner is without a passport and no action has been taken on the representation addressed by his relative to the chief Passport Officer, I direct the Chief Passport Officer/joint Secretary, ministry of External Affairs to dispose of the representation of the relative of petitioner within four weeks and communicate the decision taken to the petitioner as well as to his relative. With these directions, the petition is disposed of.