Allahabad HC Rules Minor Conviction Cannot Hinder Passport Issuance
Prayagraj: The Allahabad High Court has ruled that a person’s conviction as a minor should not impede their ability to obtain a passport, reinforcing the concept of ‘right to be forgotten.’ This principle allows juveniles to eliminate or destroy records of past delinquency, enabling them to start anew in life, according to reports by Rajesh Kumar Pandey.
A bench comprising Justices Ajit Kumar and Indrajeet Shukla made this statement while overturning a 2021 decision by the regional passport officer in Lucknow, which denied petitioner Mohd Yunus Ansari’s passport application based on a negative police report related to a pending criminal case.
The passport authorities highlighted that Ansari had undergone a criminal trial and had been convicted in a rape and kidnapping case in 2010, when he was 16 years and 10 months old. He submitted his passport application on January 29, 2020, which was rejected on March 19, 2021. The authorities claimed Ansari did not respond to a notice regarding pending criminal cases against him.
During the appeal, it was noted that Ansari had been tried and convicted by the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) in Gorakhpur in August 2013. He contended that his conviction as a juvenile should not serve as a basis for the passport denial, asserting that such a conviction could not be deemed as stigmatizing.
The government counsel argued that the rejection was justified because Ansari was a convict; however, the court remarked that the denial appeared to be driven by “sheer annoyance” due to previous contempt proceedings initiated by the petitioner against the authorities for their delays. The court criticized the decision, stating that recording a pending criminal case when none existed demonstrated a lack of seriousness and was a “monument of non-application of mind.”
