Question : ISSUANCE OF PASSPORT WITHOUT POLICE SCRUTINY

(a) whether a large number of passports are being issued by the Regional Passport Offices in the country without police scrutiny;

(b) if so, the number of such cases which came to the notice of the Union Government during the last three years till date, location-wise, State-wise;

(c) the reasons therefore;

(d) the number of criminals who have been issued passports due to late submission of police reports, State-wise; and

(e) the steps proposed to be taken to ensure that passports are not issued to the criminals and without completion of due formalities?

MINISTER OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS

(SHRI JASWANT SINGH)

a & c) Passports are normally issued after due police verification. Short validity passports of an urgent nature can be issued on condition of issue verification certificate issued by an officer not below the rank of a Deputy Secretary to the Government of India. In some cases passports are issued on police report `overdue` basis if the police report is delayed for more than four weeks. In cases where a negative police report is received subsequent to issue, such passport applicants are contacted for clarification and where necessary their passports are revoked/impounded.

b) All cases are treated as normal passport issue cases and a separate tally of post police verification cases or passports issued on police report overdue basis is not maintained.

d) As such information is not ordinarily kept in centralised form it will be collected.

e) Government has strengthened the scrutiny of documents submitted in support of passport applications, as well as the police verification process.