Vishnupriya
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the Centre to examine the possibility of processing passport requests of medically incapacitated persons without asking them to visit office. A bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela asked if a person, whose “will” could be registered at home as they were unable to visit the registrar’s office, why couldn’t passport applications be processed in a similar manner.
“This can be done very easily. You examine this aspect,” the bench told the Centre’s counsel.
The court was hearing a plea of medically incapacitated person who couldn’t visit the passport office for processing of request for passport.
The lawyer said his client’s passport application was rejected and the officials asked him to personally visit the office which was not possible.
The court issued notice to the home and external affairs ministries and sought their responses to the petition within three weeks.
“In the meantime, it is directed that the competent authority in the Government of India shall examine the feasibility of evolving guidelines for processing applications seeking passports by medically incapacitating persons and procuring biometrics and other essential data without requiring the applicants to visit the passport office and deputing officers to the residences of the applicants to collect the data,” it said.
The matter was posted on April 16.
