Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Feb 10: The octogenarian wife of former Union Home Minister Mohmmad Sayeed and mother of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti was today issued a passport after three years, a senior Passport official said.
The official told Excelsior that a passport was issued to Gulshan Nazir, wife of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and dispatched to her address.
Intending to go on pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, Gulshan Nazir had applied for a passport in June 2020. However, after a year in 2021 she was denied the passport following an adverse CID report.
The passport was issued after a month when the High Court slammed the Regional Passport Office Srinagar for not issuing her a passport and said that it can’t act like a mouthpiece of the CID Office.
Justice M A Chowdhary criticised the passport officer for acting on the CID report without analysing it. “There is no ground to refuse the issue or renewal of passport” , the court had said.
“The passport officer has not to act as a mouthpiece of the CID. When an authority is vested with power, the same is to be exercised judiciously and not arbitrarily as has been done in the instant case,” the court added.
”(The) passport officer shall consider the entire matter afresh and pass orders thereon within a period of six weeks from the date the copy of this order is served upon the said respondent,” the court said in its judgment last month.
The court observed that “there is no iota of allegation against Nazir for being a threat to the security of the state”.
The HC judgement came soon after Mehbooba mentioned the passport issue of her mother in a letter to Chief Justice of India Justice D Y Chandrachud.
In 2021, the Muftis filed a petition seeking direction to the Regional Passport Office about issuance of passport but it was rejected by the court after the RPO submitted to the court that the CID had not cleared her passport application under Section 6 (2) (c) of the Passports Act.
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