Pending FIR alone cannot be ground to refuse renewal of passport: Rajasthan HC

Jaipur: The Rajasthan High Court has held that a pending criminal case alone cannot be ground to refuse renewal of a citizen’s passport. Justice Anoop Kumar Dhand gave this ruling on 2 May 2026 in the writ petition of a Jaipur hotelier.

The Court was hearing a challenge to the Regional Passport Officer’s order dated 5 January 2023, which had rejected the petitioner’s renewal application. The reason recorded was a Police report flagging FIR No. 86/2021 against him at Mahila Thana, Jaipur City (East). The FIR was registered under Sections 498A and 406 of the Indian Penal Code, which deal with cruelty to a wife by her husband and criminal breach of trust respectively.

The petitioner, who runs a hotel and travels abroad regularly for business, moved the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution. He argued that the rejection illegally denied his fundamental right to travel abroad, which is part of personal liberty under Article 21. There was no conviction against him, and no specific bar in the Passports Act, 1967, that justified the refusal. No counsel appeared for the petitioner at the final hearing, and the Court decided the matter on the petition itself.

The Public Prosecutor opposed the petition but, the Court recorded, was “not in a position to controvert the averments made therein.” The respondents’ case rested on the Police report and Section 6(2)(f) of the Passports Act, 1967 — a clause that bars issuance of a passport while criminal proceedings are pending before a court.

Justice Dhand began with a constitutional first principle. The right to travel abroad, the Court held, is an integral facet of personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution. It is not a privilege conferred by the State but a fundamental right inherent in every citizen. That right can be curtailed only by a procedure established by law — and the procedure must itself be fair, just and reasonable.

The Court then linked the right to the document. International law and Indian rules require a valid passport for any citizen to enter or leave a foreign country. Withholding the passport, the Court noted, effectively withholds the right itself.

On the central question, Justice Dhand was direct. “This Court opines that pendency of criminal case cannot be a ground to deny passport facilities including its renewal,” he observed. The Passport Authority, in other words, could not lock a person out of foreign travel simply because an FIR was on record.

The Court anchored this reasoning in a chain of Supreme Court precedent. In Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978), the Apex Court held that the right to travel abroad cannot be taken away except by a fair, just and reasonable procedure. In Vangala Kasturi Rangacharyulu v. CBI, the Apex Court directed renewal even where the petitioner had been convicted but the appeal was pending.

The most decisive precedent was the Supreme Court’s December 2025 ruling in Mahesh Kumar Agarwal v. Union of India, which Justice Dhand relied upon at length. The Apex Court there held that pendency of a criminal case is not an absolute bar on renewal of a passport. It observed that the right to travel abroad and the right to hold a passport are facets of personal liberty under Article 21. Any restriction must bear a rational nexus with a legitimate purpose — typically, ensuring that the accused remains amenable to the criminal court’s jurisdiction.

The Supreme Court drew a sharp distinction in that ruling, which Justice Dhand reproduced in his order. Holding a passport and actually travelling abroad are two different things. Whether an accused person can leave the country is a question for the criminal court, which can grant or refuse permission and impose conditions. The passport authority, the Apex Court said, should not assume that supervisory role.

Justice Dhand also drew on his own earlier ruling in Savita Sharma v. Union of India, decided in November 2024. There, the Rajasthan High Court had held that an adverse Police verification report alone does not disentitle a citizen from holding a passport.

Applying these principles, the Court held that the FIR under Sections 498A and 406 IPC could not justify refusing the petitioner’s renewal. Such a denial, it said, would itself amount to a violation of his fundamental right under Article 21. The Court was alive to the State’s concern that an accused with a renewed passport might abscond. The answer, Justice Dhand said, was to impose appropriate conditions, not to deny renewal altogether.

Accordingly, the Court quashed the Regional Passport Officer’s order dated 5 January 2023 and directed the respondents to reconsider the petitioner’s renewal application afresh in accordance with law. If the passport is renewed, the petitioner has been directed to submit an undertaking before the trial court and the Investigating Officer of FIR No. 86/2021. The undertaking must record that he will not travel abroad without prior permission of the Court, and that he will return to face trial when directed. If he violates any condition or fails to file the undertaking, the authorities will be at liberty to impound the passport.