A government may reform the Passport act 1967 and passport rules 1980 after getting lots of harassments complaints from people. An Inter-Ministerial Panel has suggested the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) that the practice of attaching printing details of father, mother or spouse in the passport should do away for making immigration process easy.
Attaching details with passport is quite irrelevant: Panel
The move came after the several complaints of procedural harassment especially from women were received by the panel. The panel submitted a report to MEA which has mentioned that the Ministry must do away with the said details just like the global practice. The panel observed that the information is quite “irrelevant for immigration purposes either in India or overseas.
In this report, the panel has also mentioned that the condition of asking details of father, mother or spouse is not required in most of the developed countries. It said that while details may be required but do not need to be printed on page 35 of the passport.
To review the passport Act 1967 and Passport Rules 1980, the committee including of official from the Ministry of woman and Child Development (WCD), MEA and Central Passport organization was formed over three months ago.
Menaka Gandhi wrote letter to MEA to amend the rules
The committee was constituted after WCD Minister Menaka Gandhi wrote to MEA Sushma Swaraj in which she had highlighted a particular incident of harassment faced by a single parent named Priyanka Gupta.
“The only details required for immigration purposes are those printed on page 2 that concern to the passports holder’s name, sex, nationality, birth and passport details. Most women, single, separated and divorced have complained to us that they find it humiliation when asked for irrelevant details that they are not comfortable revealing,” an official from the ministry mentioned. our motive is to make immigration process flexible.
If the suggestions are implemented by the MEA, all the issues would be resolved of single parents and also separated divorced couples, orphans, and children born through surrogacy or out of wedlock.
