Interfaith passport issue: Lucknow passport officer clears Tanvi's passport

Lucknow, July 4: The authorities at a regional passport office in Lucknow have cleared the passport issued to the inter-faith couple Tanvi Seth and Anas Siddiqui in the city as per the new rules of the Ministry of External Affairs.

The clearance was granted as the Local Intelligence Unit (LIU) did not file any adverse report related to the six points mentioned in the new passport verification rules.

Highly-placed sources in the Regional Passport Office claimed that objections raised by passport officer Vikash Mishra were not in contravention to the new rules for making a new passport. The new rules clearly suggest that no marriage certificate was required to declare marriage. A simple declaration from the couple is all needed to prove that they are married.

Thus, raising doubts over their inter-faith marriage by passport officer Vikash Mishra was uncalled for. He should have simply suggested them to write an application in the form of a declaration to remove his doubts over the couple's marriage as per new rules.

A few days ago, Lucknow SSP Deepak Kumar had confirmed filing an adverse report during verification as Seth had not been living in Lucknow - which she had mentioned as her current address - for the past one year, and had been living in Noida instead.

However, Regional Passport Officer Piyush Verma said that as per new verification rules, applicable from June 1 onwards, no adverse report can be filed on basis of a person's address. "We have cleared the passport of Tanvi Seth ...No adverse report was filed by police on the six points mentioned in the new format."

Union Minister, Sushma Swaraj was also abused by a few Twitter users, who took umbrage at the minister for instructing the passport office to take action against the accused officer. However, her Cabinet colleagues and senior BJP leaders Nitin Gadkari and Rajnath Singh supported her and said it was unfortunate that Swaraj received abusive messages.