After Nearly 2-Year Wait, Madras HC Orders A.G. Perarivalan’s Passport Application Decided Within 4 Weeks, Using Police Counter As Verification Report

In brief

The question

Whether the passport authority could continue to withhold disposal of the petitioner’s application while awaiting a police verification report, in light of his release and the police information before the Court.

The court held

The Court allowed the petition to the extent of issuing a mandamus directing the second respondent to dispose of the passport application, considering the Inspector of Police’s counter affidavit as the police verification report.

It also directed

The authority was directed to complete the exercise within four weeks of receiving a copy of the order. The writ petition was disposed of with no order as to costs.

01Facts

The petitioner applied for a fresh passport under the Normal Scheme. His application was placed on hold pending police verification, and remained undisposed despite his request for expeditious processing.

¶ 2–2.2

He had previously been convicted of offences including offences under the Passports Act, 1967 and TADA; the Supreme Court commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment and later set him at liberty on 18 May 2022.

¶ 4–5

In the proceedings, the police stated that no criminal case was pending against him at Jolarpettai Police Station after his release. The petitioner sought a direction for disposal of his passport application.

¶ 1, 5

02Issues

i.Whether the passport authority could continue to withhold disposal of the petitioner’s application while awaiting a police verification report, in light of his release and the police information before the Court.

¶ 6–7

ii.Whether the police counter affidavit could be treated as the verification report and relied upon to direct disposal of the pending application.

¶ 7, 9

03Law Applied

The Court relied on the Full Bench decision in Jawahar Rajan v. The Regional Passport Officer, W.P. (MD) No. 26547 of 2025, dated 9 February 2026, for the principle that the pendency of a criminal case is not an absolute bar to passport issuance.

¶ 8

The Court also considered the petitioner’s release by the Supreme Court and the police statement that no criminal case was pending against him at the relevant police station.

¶ 5–6

The judgment does not identify a particular statutory provision as the basis for its direction.

04Reasoning

The Court noted that the petitioner had been set at liberty by the Supreme Court and that the police counter affidavit reported no criminal case pending against him at Jolarpettai Police Station after his release.

¶ 5–6

It therefore held that the passport authority’s continued reluctance to process the application solely because it awaited a police report was unjustified.

¶ 7

Given that the counter affidavit also contained relevant details about the petitioner’s family, the Court treated it as the police verification report. The principle in Jawahar Rajan further supported the conclusion that criminal proceedings, in themselves, do not impose an absolute bar to passport issuance.

¶ 7–8

05Holding

¶ 9

The authority was directed to complete the exercise within four weeks of receiving a copy of the order. The writ petition was disposed of with no order as to costs.

¶ 9–10

LawLens.Madras High Court

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