JENIFER WILLIAM Vs. REGIONAL PASSPORT OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The prayer in this Writ Petition is to issue a Writ of Mandamus, directing the 1st Respondent to return the Passport No.L2329595, issued dated 25.06.2013 to the Petitioner, within time frame.

(2.) The case of the Petitioner is that he belonged to a fishermen family and since he inured to go abroad for employment, he had applied for passport on 23.04.2013 in File No.MD2061953697513 and the 1st Respondent had issued the passport on 25.6.2013, bearing No. L2329595. While the Petitioner was about to travel abroad through Trivandrum Airport, he was stopped and his passport was seized by AFRRO, Bureau of Immigration on 29.11.2018 and the Petitioner was issued with a receipt for such seizure and the passport is now in the custody of the 1st Respondent. Only after the passport was seized, the Petitioner came to know that criminal cases in Cr.Nos304, 330, 331, 333, 334 of 2012 and 126 of 2013 registered by the Kudankulam Police Station, were pending against him. It was also stated that a show cause notice dated 13.6.2016 was issued to him, calling upon him to show cause as to why action should not be taken to impound his passport under Sections 103(b) and 12(1)(b) of the Passport Act for suppressing and giving wrong information to the authorities regarding the pending criminal cases against him. Later, it was also informed that by letter dated, 6.7.2016, it was decided to impound the passport of the Petitioner and intimation was given to him. The Petitioner was not served with the show cause notice before the passport was impounded. Only on verification, the Petitioner came to know that the cases have been registered by the 2nd Respondent Police in respect of the agitations conducted against the Kudankulam Nuclear Plant and that the Petitioner being a resident of Idinthakarai, was also arrayed as an accused in all these cases. The Petitioner was not aware of him being implicated in these cases and he was also not arrested and he has not filed any application, seeking anticipatory bail. After completion of the investigation, in all these cases, charge sheets have been filed in PRC.Nos.41 to 43 of 2014, 32 of 2014 and CC.No.339 of 2014 and 364 of 2014. Prior to applying for passport, the Petitioner was not aware of the cases registered against him and thereby, he had not disclosed about the pendency of the cases in the application for passport and there was no wilful suppression of facts by the Petitioner.

(3.) The family of the Petitioner is entirely depending on him and though he has got opportunities of getting employment abroad, due to ithholding of the passport, the Petitioner is unable to pursue his career. All the above cases were registered against the Villagers belonging to the coastal area to curtail agitations against the installation of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant and the cases are pending from the year 2014. The cases were foisted by the 2nd Respondent against the Members of the coastal villages without any proper investigation. Since the cases were registered without any basis, the Petitioner had approached this Court by filing quash petitions in Crl.OP(MD)Nos. 2064, 2068, 2070, 2071, 2072 and 2075 of 2020, wherein this Court by order dated, 7.2.2020 had stayed all further proceedings pending against the the Petitioner. Since the cases have been stayed, the present petition has been filed, seeking for a direction to the 1st Respondent to return the passport to the Petitioner within a time frame.