Passport renewal: High Court relief for man after wrong police verification

In a significant ruling, the Bombay High Court recently ordered the regional passport office (RPO) to reissue a passport to Exalt D’souza, a resident of Chembur, after his application was wrongfully rejected due to an erroneous police verification report. The police report had mistakenly indicated that he had a pending criminal case, while it was actually a civil case.

"We make it clear that the application for re-issuance of passport shall not be rejected on the basis that a civil case is pending against the petitioner," stated Justices Burgess Colabawalla and Firdosh Pooniwalla in their order dated July 4.

D’souza, aged 57, had applied for the renewal of his passport. On July 10, 2020, the RPO in Bandra (E) sought clarification regarding the police report, which erroneously stated that there was a pending criminal case against him before a civil judge in Mapusa, Goa. The passport office said that an unsatisfactory explanation would lead to a denial of the passport.


D’souza promptly visited the RPO on August 4, 2020, presenting the relevant case papers. These were subsequently sent to the Chembur police for verification. He requested the police to correct their mistake. However, on August 20, 2020, he received another letter from the regional passport office, citing the pending case and demanding a court order and undertaking.

D’souza's advocates argued that the police verification report was fundamentally flawed as there was no criminal case against their client only a civil suit concerning the partition of property. They asserted that the passport authorities had no grounds to deny the passport based on this erroneous report.

The RPO's advocate acknowledged that D’souza had mentioned the civil court and case number in his application. Singh stated that D’souza must file a fresh passport application and that the existence of a civil case would not be a valid reason for refusal. (With TOI inputs)