An non-resident Indian has challenged his right to possess
more than one passport, albeit ‘under special circumstances’.
Can an Indian citizen hold more than one valid passport? Meet Faizal Shaikh (name changed), an NRI businessman, who holds three Indian passports.
The three passports have landed Shaikh in the High Court, where he has challenged a decision of the Ministry of External Affairs to revoke all his passports, thereby grounding his travel plans. Shaikh, who lives in Dubai and runs a chain of jewellery stores, was issued a show-cause notice by the Mumbai Regional Passport Office (RPO) in July 2006 asking him to explain how he held three valid travel documents.
Shaikh explained that the first passport was issued to him in 1988 from Hyderabad. In 1998, he needed to travel to Israel on a business trip. However, due to political tension between the UAE and Israel, he could not have travelled to Israel after having travelled to UAE. He, therefore, applied for a fresh passport which was issued from Mumbai in 1998. He, however, lost the new passport and made another application. He got the third passport issued in 1999.
Unconvinced by Shaikh’s explanation, the RPO revoked all his passports in August 2006. Shaikh filed an appeal with the Ministry of External Affairs, which upheld the RPO’s decision.
Shaikh has now challenged the Ministry’s decision in the HC. His lawyer, Shrihari Aney pointed out in the court that under Rule 13 of Passport Rules, 1980, more than one passport can be issued to a person under special circumstances (See box). Aney told the court that Hussein had not used the second and third passports for any international travel as the second document was lost and third had an error in his date of birth. He said Shaikh was willing to surrender the extra passport.
In December 2006, the HC allowed Shaikh to use his first passport to travel to UAE after submitting a surety of Rs 10 lakh in the HC. The court had asked Shaikh to return to India by January 1, 2007. On Thursday, Justice HL Gokhale and Justice VM Kanade asked Shaikh to deposit another surety of Rs 10 lakh with the RPO and continue to use his passport. The HC is still to decide whether a person can hold more than one passport. The RPO has been asked to file its reply within four weeks.
Can one have more than 1?
According to Rule 13 of Passport Rules, 1980, that falls within the purview of the Passports Act, 1967; “Separate passports may be issued to the same person in respect of different countries if it is necessary to do so for facilitating his visit to such countries”.
According to lawyer Uday Warunjikar after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991, persons from Tamil Nadu had trouble in getting a visa to Sri Lanka. Under such special circumstances, they could apply to the RPO in any other city apart from Chennai and obtain a fresh passport to facilitate their travel.
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