Mehbooba’s 80-year-old mother gets passport after 3 years, on court intervention

Mehbooba Mufti’s mother had been denied the passport, with the citing of an adverse police report

The eighty-year-old mother of former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chief Mehbooba Mufti received a passport on Friday almost three years after she had applied for the same. The move came a month after the J&K High Court passed fresh directions to the Passport Officer.

Gulshan Nazir, wife of former Union Home Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, had applied for a passport in 2020 when she intended to go on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. However, she was denied the passport in 2021 following an adverse police report. 

A close relative of Ms. Mufti told The Hindu, “I am hopeful of her dream to go on an ‘umrah’ (pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina) being fulfilled now.”

In 2021, the Muftis filed a petition but was rejected by the court after the Regional Passport Office submitted to the court that the J&K Police’s CID department had not cleared her passport application under Section 6 (2) (c) of the Passports Act. 

However, in response to a fresh petition, the J&K High Court in January this year directed the Passport Officer “to consider re-issuance of passport afresh”.

“In such a situation without going into the PVR (Police Verification Report), the refusal on the part of the Passport Officer can simply be termed as ‘non-application of mind’. The Passport Officer has not to act as the mouthpiece of the CID (nodal agency). When an authority is vested with the power, the same is to be exercised judiciously and not arbitrarily as has been done in the instant case,” Justice M. A. Chowdhary observed.

The court had directed the Passport Officer to “consider the entire matter afresh and pass orders thereon within a period of six weeks”.