Chennai: The Madras high court has reserved orders on a petition filed by former DMK minister Durai Murugan, seeking a direction to the Regional Passport Office to issue a fresh passport to him.
Justice Pushpa Satyanarayana reserved orders after hearing arguments from both sides.
In his petition, Durai Murugan submitted that he was issued with a passport on October 8, 2013, which was valid up to October 7, 2023. The said booklet was fully used by him for his travel and therefore, he had applied for re-issue of passport due to exhaustion of pages on November 9, 2018. While making the application, he had filled in all the relevant columns meticulously and had annexed the requested supporting documents as prescribed. However, the passport office had returned his application. He has been traveling across the world to participate in various cultural, social and political programmes. Hence, he filed the present petition, he added.
When the case came up for hearing on Tuesday, Richard Wilson, counsel for the petitioner submitted that the reason cited for returning the application was a criminal case was pending against the petitioner. But, it was not correct. The petitioner was discharged from a criminal case and as against this, a revision petition was filed and it was pending. The petitioner himself had disclosed the pending revision petition. No case was pending in any criminal court against the petitioner. The case pending against the petitioner before this court, which was not a criminal court and therefore section 6 (2) Indian Passport Act was not attracted, Richard added.Counsel appearing for the Regional Passport office submitted that any appeal or revision petition filed against an order was deemed to be a pending case.
