Violation of travel ban to Yemen: Karnataka High Court asks MEA to consider Belthangady nurse’s plea for release of seized passport

High Court of Karnataka directs nurse to approach Ministry of External Affairs for release of passport seized for traveling to Yemen.

Observing that the court would not interfere with notification or law brought into force for the security of the nation, the High Court of Karnataka has directed a nurse to approach the Ministry of External Affairs for the release of her passport, which was seized for travelling to Yemen in violation of the ban imposed on Indians to travel to that country.

Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order after noticing that the Minister for External Affairs had informed the Rajya Sabha that the Ministry, to mitigate the sufferings of the people who had travelled to Yemen due to job compulsions or due to ignorance, had issued guidelines to all passport issuing authorities to process the release of passports on case-to-case basis, and so far 169 such seized passports had been released.

The court directed the petitioner, Shany Jose of Neria in Belthangady taluk of Dakshina Kannada district, to submit a detailed representation to the Regional Passport Officer, in whose custody the passport of the petitioner is, within four weeks, and asked the passport authorities to decide her representation within four weeks.

The petitioner had said that she was ignorant of the September 2017 notification of imposing a travel ban in the light of the precarious security situation in Yemen and her passport was seized in August 2023 even though she had travelled to Yemen, where she was employed as a nurse since 2011, twice after the imposition of the travel ban. Her passport was seized when she came to India to see her ailing father.

Though she had given an undertaking that she would not travel to Yemen again, the authorities have not released her passport as the 2017 notification states that seized passport would not be released for seven years.