Mehbooba Mufti moves J&K HC for passport application clearance pending since December

Srinagar: PDP president and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti has moved the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, seeking its intervention for clearance of her passport application pending at the Regional Passport Office (RPO) here for nearly three months.

Mehbooba had applied for a fresh passport in December last year after its expiry on May 31. However, her passport application has not been cleared till date due to want of a police verification report, officials said.

The 60-year-old politician was put under preventive custody on August 5, 2019, the day when central government revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 and bifurcated the erstwhile state into two union territories.

She was released in October last year after the Union Territory administration revoked the Public Safety Act charges against her, more than a year after she was detained.

In a petition before the high court, Mehbooba said the passport, as per the instruction manual, is expected to be dispatched within 30 days but her application is pending before the passport officer since December 11, last year.

Mehbooba said she submitted a representation to the passport officer to know the status of her application after the passage of more than a month and came to know that the police verification, which is required to be completed within a period of 21 days, is pending.

Seeking intervention of the court in early issuance of her passport, Mehbooba also sought directions declaring the action of officials concerned in not allowing her to travel abroad as “illegal and unconstitutional”, violating her fundamental right to travel abroad as guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. (PTI)